More than one-third of the students in the San Diego schools were enrolled in the Choice Program for the 2005-2006 school year. The program gives parents the ability to transfer their children from their assigned school to one that offers more academic opportunities or specific school attributes. The program offers six methods of eligibility.

Program Improvement School Choice. Children assigned to San Diego schools that have failed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) academic standards may apply to better-ranked San Diego schools. Students applying for transfer under this program generally receive a higher priority than others and receive free transportation. If in the future the assigned San Diego schools pass the NCLB standards, parents may choose to move their children back to the assigned schools or continue in the new schools.

Magnet Schools Program. These San Diego schools are each based upon a theme, such as performing arts, with the curriculum centered around it. Though they provide all the state required basics, students can immerse themselves in the particular subject; whereas in other schools, the theme may only be offered as an elective class or two. Magnet schools are designed to attract a diverse cross section of students from throughout the city. Free transportation is provided to students who live outside a specific mileage range. Acceptance priority is given based upon:

• Demographics &ndash they encourage San Diego schools students living in demographic areas different from where the Magnet School is located to apply,

• Continuity &ndash San Diego schools students in a performing arts elementary school, for example, would be given acceptance priority when applying to a performing arts middle and high school,

• Siblings &ndash San Diego schools students with brothers or sisters already enrolled in the school are given priority,

• Program Improvement &ndash receives a lower priority than the others listed above, and

• General Applications &ndash receives the lowest priority.

Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program (VEEP). VEEP was designed to provide a better racial and cultural integrated, educational experience in the San Diego schools. Predominantly Caucasian-populated schools are paired with minority schools for the program. Most transfer students receive free transportation.

Choice Program. Any San Diego schools student is eligible to apply to any school not in the Magnet program. Acceptance is based solely on the space available, and transportation is the parents’ responsibility.

Inter-District Transfer Program. Any student with the state may apply to any school within the San Diego schools. Like the Choice Program, acceptance is based solely on the space available, and transportation is the parents’ responsibility.

Charter Schools Program. These independent schools within the San Diego schools are on space available only and often use a random lottery for application acceptance. Some require that the students applying meet specific criteria. If you are interested in transferring your child to a Charter School, inquire early &ndash they set their own application deadlines.

If you find that your child does not meet any of these criteria or their acceptance priority would be low, there are two other methods of gaining transfer acceptance that are not part of the overall Choice Program. They are through special request and the Gifted and Talented Education Program (GATE). You may submit a special request to the San Diego schools, when your child’s assigned school does not offer specific coursework. These requests are handled on a case-by-case basis. If the GATE program is not offered in your child’s assigned school and your child qualifies, again you may request a transfer to a school that does.

Other than in the Charter Schools, applications to San Diego schools by March 15th for the following school year are given priority.

Though the Choice Program offers a great opportunity to all San Diego schools students, there are a lot of choices. With 212 public schools, including the 31 Magnet Schools and 35 Charter Schools, investigating the schools and their offerings can be overwhelming and time consuming for the parents.

San Diego schools officials offer the following advice:

• All schools offer the required basic coursework, so do not get caught up in “only one school will do” &ndash look at the many other schools, too;

• Look beyond test scores &ndash schools have a lot more to offer, such as specialized education programs;

• Visit the school campus &ndash what looks good on paper may be different in reality, sometimes better and sometimes worse;

• Talk to parents and educators at the school, find out first-hand; and

• Ask if they offer parent seminars and tours before the application deadline.

If you are interested in applying for a transfer to any of the San Diego schools, begin early, list the criteria you wish to be provided by the school, look at all the available schools, choose those that seem to fit your requirements, and then thoroughly investigate each one. It is a lot of homework for the parents, but it can be the best foundation they can give their children.

This information on San Diego schools is brought to you by .schoolsk-12.com.

“Puer Aeternus” &ndash the eternal adolescent, the semipternal Peter pan &ndash is a phenomenon often associated with pathological narcissism. People who refuse to grow up strike others as self-centred and aloof, petulant and brattish, haughty and demanding &ndash in short: as childish or infantile.

The narcissist is a partial adult. He seeks to avoid adulthood. Infantilisation &ndash the discrepancy between one’s advanced chronological age and one’s retarded behaviour, cognition, and emotional development &ndash is the narcissist’s preferred art form. Some narcissists even use a childish tone of voice occasionally and adopt a toddler’s body language.

But most narcissist resort to more subtle means.

They reject or avoid adult chores and functions. They refrain from acquiring adult skills (such as driving) or an adult’s formal education. They evade adult responsibilities towards others, including and especially towards their nearest and dearest. They hold no steady jobs, never get married, raise no family, cultivate no roots, maintain no real friendships or meaningful relationships.

Many a narcissist remains attached to his (or her) family of origin. By clinging to his parents, the narcissist continues to act in the role of a child. He thus avoids the need to make adult decisions and (potentially painful) choices. He transfers all adult chores and responsibilities &ndash from laundry to baby-sitting &ndash to his parents, siblings, spouse, or other relatives. He feels unshackled, a free spirit, ready to take on the world (in other words omnipotent and omnipresent).

Such “delayed adulthood” is very common in many poor and developing countries, especially those with patriarchal societies. I wrote in “The Last Family”:

“To the alienated and schizoid ears of Westerners, the survival of family and community in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) sounds like an attractive proposition. A dual purpose safety net, both emotional and economic, the family in countries in transition provides its members with unemployment benefits, accommodation, food and psychological advice to boot.

Divorced daughters, saddled with little (and not so little) ones, the prodigal sons incapable of finding a job befitting their qualifications, the sick, the unhappy &ndash all are absorbed by the compassionate bosom of the family and, by extension the community. The family, the neighbourhood, the community, the village, the tribe &ndash are units of subversion as well as useful safety valves, releasing and regulating the pressures of contemporary life in the modern, materialistic, crime ridden state.

The ancient blood feud laws of the kanoon were handed over through familial lineages in northern Albania, in defiance of the paranoiac Enver Hoxha regime. Criminals hide among their kin in the Balkans, thus effectively evading the long arm of the law (state). Jobs are granted, contracts signed and tenders won on an open and strict nepotistic basis and no one finds it odd or wrong. There is something atavistically heart-warming in all this.

Historically, the rural units of socialisation and social organisation were the family and the village. As villagers migrated to the cities, these structural and functional patterns were imported by them, en masse. The shortage of urban apartments and the communist invention of the communal apartment (its tiny rooms allocated one per family with kitchen and bathroom common to all) only served to perpetuate these ancient modes of multi-generational huddling. At best, the few available apartments were shared by three generations: parents, married off-spring and their children. In many cases, the living space was also shared by sickly or no-good relatives and even by unrelated families.

These living arrangements &ndash more adapted to rustic open spaces than to high rises &ndash led to severe social and psychological dysfunctions. To this very day, Balkan males are spoiled by the subservience and servitude of their in-house parents and incessantly and compulsively catered to by their submissive wives. Occupying someone else’s home, they are not well acquainted with adult responsibilities.

Stunted growth and stagnant immaturity are the hallmarks of an entire generation, stifled by the ominous proximity of suffocating, invasive love. Unable to lead a healthy sex life behind paper thin walls, unable to raise their children and as many children as they see fit, unable to develop emotionally under the anxiously watchful eye of their parents &ndash this greenhouse generation is doomed to a zombie-like existence in the twilight nether land of their parents’ caves. Many ever more eagerly await the demise of their caring captors and the promised land of their inherited apartments, free of their parents’ presence.

The daily pressures and exigencies of co-existence are enormous. The prying, the gossip, the criticism, the chastising, the small agitating mannerisms, the smells, the incompatible personal habits and preferences, the pusillanimous bookkeeping &ndash all serve to erode the individual and to reduce him or her to the most primitive mode of survival. This is further exacerbated by the need to share expenses, to allocate labour and tasks, to plan ahead for contingencies, to see off threats, to hide information, to pretend and to fend off emotionally injurious behaviour. It is a sweltering tropic of affective cancer.”

Alternatively, by acting as surrogate caregiver to his siblings or parents, the narcissist displaces his adulthood into a fuzzier and less demanding territory. The social expectations from a husband and a father are clear-cut. Not so from a substitute, mock, or ersatz parent. By investing his efforts, resources, and emotions in his family of origin, the narcissist avoids having to establish a new family and face the world as an adult. His is an “adulthood by proxy”, a vicarious imitation of the real thing.

The ultimate in dodging adulthood is finding God (long recognised as a father-substitute), or some other “higher cause”. The believer allows the doctrine and the social institutions that enforce it to make decisions for him and thus relieve him of responsibility. He succumbs to the paternal power of the collective and surrenders his personal autonomy. In other words, he is a child once more. Hence the allure of faith and the lure of dogmas such as nationalism or Communism or liberal democracy.

But why does the narcissist refuse to grow up? Why does he postpone the inevitable and regards adulthood as a painful experience to be avoided at a great cost to personal growth and self-realisation? Because remaining essentially a toddler caters to all his narcissistic needs and defences and nicely tallies with the narcissist’s inner psychodynamic landscape.

Pathological narcissism is an infantile defence against abuse and trauma, usually occurring in early childhood or early adolescence. Thus, narcissism is inextricably entwined with the abused child’s or adolescent’s emotional make-up, cognitive deficits, and worldview. To say “narcissist” is to say “thwarted, tortured child”.

It is important to remember that overweening, smothering, spoiling, overvaluing, and idolising the child &ndash are all forms of parental abuse. There is nothing more narcissistically-gratifying than the admiration and adulation (Narcissistic Supply) garnered by precocious child-prodigies (Wunderkinder). Narcissists who are the sad outcomes of excessive pampering and sheltering become addicted to it.

In a paper published in Quadrant in 1980 and titled “Puer Aeternus: The Narcissistic Relation to the Self”, Jeffrey Satinover, a Jungian analyst, offers these astute observations:

“The individual narcissistically bound to (the image or archetype of the divine child) for identity can experience satisfaction from a concrete achievement only if it matches the grandeur of this archetypal image. It must have the qualities of greatness, absolute uniqueness, of being the best and … prodigiously precocious. This latter quality explains the enormous fascination of child prodigies, and also explains why even a great success yields no permanent satisfaction for the puer: being an adult, no accomplishment is precocious unless he stays artificially young or equates his accomplishments with those of old age (hence the premature striving after the wisdom of those who are much older).”

The simple truth is that children get away with narcissistic traits and behaviours. Narcissists know that. They envy children, hate them, try to emulate them and, thus, compete with them for scarce Narcissistic Supply.

Children are forgiven for feeling grandiose and self-important or even encouraged to develop such emotions as part of “building up their self-esteem”. Kids frequently exaggerate with impunity accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and personality traits &ndash exactly the kind of conduct that narcissists are chastised for!

As part of a normal and healthy development trajectory, young children are as obsessed as narcissists are with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, and unequalled brilliance. Adolescent are expected to be preoccupied with bodily beauty or sexual performance (as is the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion. What is normal in the first 16 years of life is labelled a pathology later on.

Children are firmly convinced that they are unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people. In time, through the process of socialisation, young adults learn the benefits of collaboration and acknowledge the innate value of each and every person. Narcissists never do. They remain fixated in the earlier stage.

Preteens and teenagers require excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation. It is a transient phase that gives place to the self-regulation of one’s sense of inner worth. Narcissists, however, remain dependent on others for their self-esteem and self-confidence. They are fragile and fragmented and thus very susceptible to criticism, even if it is merely implied or imagined.

Well into pubescence, children feel entitled. As toddlers, they demand automatic and full compliance with their unreasonable expectations for special and favourable priority treatment. They grow out of it as they develop empathy and respect for the boundaries, needs, and wishes of other people. Again, narcissists never mature, in this sense.

Children, like adult narcissists, are “interpersonally exploitative”, i.e., use others to achieve their own ends. During the formative years (0-6 years old), children are devoid of empathy. They are unable to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others.

Both adult narcissists and young children are envious of others and sometimes seek to hurt or destroy the causes of their frustration. Both groups behave arrogantly and haughtily, feel superior, omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, “above the law”, and omnipresent (magical thinking), and rage when frustrated, contradicted, challenged, or confronted.

The narcissist seeks to legitimise his child-like conduct and his infantile mental world by actually remaining a child, by refusing to mature and to grow up, by avoiding the hallmarks of adulthood, and by forcing others to accept him as the Puer Aeternus, the Eternal Youth, a worry-free, unbounded, Peter Pan.

On all modern vehicles there is a computer that controls the way the engine operates, this computer is called Electronic Control Module, or ECM. The purpose of the ECM is to maintain the engine running within emissions limits and at top efficiency. With the very strict emission regulations of today, this is not an easy task to achieve. Precise and constant adjustments to match various conditions of the engine must be made by the ECM in regards to speed, load, engine temperature and others.

How the ECM works:

A number of sensors are available that provide the ECM with the information it needs, such inputs are engine and ambient temperature, vehicle speed and load. The ECM makes adjustments by advancing or retarding the ignition timing, adds or subtracts fuel or increases and decreases the idle speed.

In the exhaust, before the catalytic converter, an oxygen sensor monitors the quality of the combustion produced in the cylinders. The sensor produces a feedback that is then used by the ECM to make fine adjustments to the fuel-air mixture with the objective to reduce emissions. After the catalytic converter, another sensor in the exhaust monitors it’s efficiency

Other additional emission control systems exist, such as the Evaporative System, or EVAP. The objective of EVAP is to prevent vapors of gasoline, from the gas tank, from being released into the atmosphere. There are also a number of sensors and actuators that are controlled by the ECM.

The operation of sensors and other engine components is constantly tested by the self-diagnostic capability of the ECM. If one of the signals is missing or if it’s not in the normal range then the Check Engine light is illuminated and the Diagnostic Trouble Code, DTC, is stored in the memory of the ECM. The Check Engine light will be illuminated also if a mechanical component, such as the EGR valve, fails.

With a special scan tool, the stored code can be retrieved by a technician, that will then know only a direction where to look for. The code doesn’t tell specific information about the failure, certain tests have to be performed for each code, in order to find the exact cause of the problem.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition, text revision [American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV-TR, Washington, 2000] - or the DSM-IV-TR for short - describes Axis II personality disorders as “deeply ingrained, maladaptive, lifelong behavior patterns”. But the classificatory model the DSM has been using since 1952 is harshly criticized as woefully inadequate by many scholars and practitioners.

The DSM is categorical. It states that personality disorders are “qualitatively distinct clinical syndromes” (p. 689). But this is by no means widely accepted. As we saw in my previous article and blog entry, the professionals cannot even agree on what constitutes “normal” and how to distinguish it from the “disordered” and the “abnormal”. The DSM does not provide a clear “threshold” or “critical mass” beyond which the subject should be considered mentally ill.

Moreover, the DSM’s diagnostic criteria are ploythetic. In other words, suffice it to satisfy only a subset of the criteria to diagnose a personality disorder. Thus, people diagnosed with the same personality disorder may share only one criterion or none. This diagnostic heterogeneity (great variance) is unacceptable and non-scientific.

In another article we deal with the five diagnostic axes employed by the DSM to capture the way clinical syndromes (such as anxiety, mood, and eating disorders), general medical conditions, psychosocial and environmental problems, chronic childhood and developmental problems, and functional issues interact with personality disorders.

Yet, the DSM’s “laundry lists” obscure rather than clarify the interactions between the various axes. As a result, the differential diagnoses that are supposed to help us distinguish one personality disorder from all others, are vague. In psych-parlance: the personality disorders are insufficiently demarcated. This unfortunate state of affairs leads to excessive co-morbidity: multiple personality disorders diagnosed in the same subject. Thus, psychopaths (Antisocial Personality Disorder) are often also diagnosed as narcissists (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) or borderlines (Borderline Personality Disorder).

The DSM also fails to distinguish between personality, personality traits, character, temperament, personality styles (Theodore Millon’s contribution) and full-fledged personality disorders. It does not accommodate personality disorders induced by circumstances (reactive personality disorders, such as Milman’s proposed “Acquired Situational Narcissism”). Nor does it efficaciously cope with personality disorders that are the result of medical conditions (such as brain injuries, metabolic conditions, or protracted poisoning). The DSM had to resort to classifying some personality disorders as NOS “not otherwise specified”, a catchall, meaningless, unhelpful, and dangerously vague diagnostic “category”.

One of the reasons for this dismal taxonomy is the dearth of research and rigorously documented clinical experience regarding both the disorders and various treatment modalities. Read this week’s article to learn about the DSM’s other great failing: many of the personality disorders are “culture-bound”. They reflect social and contemporary biases, values, and prejudices rather than authentic and invariable psychological constructs and entities.

The DSM-IV-TR distances itself from the categorical model and hints at the emergence of an alternative: the dimensional approach:

“An alternative to the categorical approach is the dimensional perspective that Personality Disorders represent maladaptive variants of personality traits that merge imperceptibly into normality and into one another” (p.689)

According to the deliberations of the DSM V Committee, the next edition of this work of reference (due to be published in 2010) will tackle these long neglected issues:

The longitudinal course of the disorder(s) and their temporal stability from early childhood onwards;

The genetic and biological underpinnings of personality disorder(s);

The development of personality psychopathology during childhood and its emergence in adolescence;

The interactions between physical health and disease and personality disorders;

The effectiveness of various treatments - talk therapies as well as psychopharmacology.

In the first two parts, representing, adding, and subtracting numbers using base ten blocks were explained. The use of base ten blocks gives students an effective tool that they can touch and manipulate to solve math questions. Not only are base ten blocks effective at solving math questions, they teach students important steps and skills that translate directly into paper and pencil methods of solving math questions. Students who first use base ten blocks develop a stronger conceptual understanding of place value, addition, subtraction, and other math skills. Because of their benefit to the math development of young people, educators have looked for other applications involving base ten blocks. In this article, a variety of other applications will be explained.

Multiplying One- and Two-Digit Numbers

One common way of teaching multiplication is to create a rectangle where the two factors become the two dimensions of a rectangle. This is easily accomplished using graph paper. Imagine the question 7 x 6. Students colour or shade a rectangle seven squares wide and six squares long; then they count the number of squares in their rectangle to find the product of 7 x 6. With base ten blocks, the process is essentially the same except students are able to touch and manipulate real objects which many educators say has a greater effect on a student’s ability to understand the concept. In the example, 5 x 8, students create a rectangle 5 cubes wide by 8 cubes long, and they count the number of cubes in the rectangle to find the product.

Multiplying two-digit numbers is slightly more complicated, but it can be learned fairly quickly. If both factors in the multiplication question are two-digit numbers, the flats, the rods, and the cubes might all be used. In the case of two-digit multiplication, the flats and the rods just quicken the procedure; the multiplication could be accomplished with just cubes. The procedure is the same as for one-digit multiplication - the student creates a rectangle using the two factors as the dimensions of the rectangle. Once they have built the rectangle, they count the number of units in the rectangle to find the product. Consider the multiplication, 54 x 25. The student needs to create a rectangle 54 cubes wide by 25 cubes long. Since that might take a while, the student can use a shortcut. A flat is simply 100 cubes, and a rod is simply 10 cubes, so the student builds the rectangle filling in the large areas with flats and rods. In its most efficient form, the rectangle for 54 x 25 is 5 flats and four rods in width (the rods are arranged vertically), and 2 flats and five rods in length (with the rods arranged horizontally). The rectangle is filled in with flats, rods, and cubes. In the whole rectangle, there are 10 flats, 33 rods, and 20 cubes. Using the values for each base ten block, there is a total of (10 x 100) + (33 x 10) + (20 x 1) = 1350 cubes in the rectangle. Students can count each type of base ten block separately and add them up.

Division

Base ten blocks are so flexible, they can even be used to divide! There are three methods for division that I will describe: grouping, distributing, and modified multiplying.

To divide by grouping, first represent the dividend (the number you are dividing) with base ten blocks. Arrange the base ten blocks into groups the size of the divisor. Count the number of groups to find the quotient. For example, 348 divided by 58 is represented by 3 flats, 4 rods, and 8 cubes. To arrange 348 into groups of 58, trade the flats for rods, and some of the rods for cubes. The result is six piles of 58, so the quotient is six.

Dividing by distributing is the old “one for you and one for me” trick. Distribute the dividend into the same number of piles as the divisor. At the end, count how many piles are left. Students will probably pick up the analogy of sharing quite easily - i.e. We need to give everyone an equal number of base ten blocks. To illustrate, consider 192 divided by 8. Students represent 192 with one flat, 9 rods and 2 cubes. They can distribute the rods into eight groups easily, but the flat has to be traded for rods, and some rods for cubes to accomplish the distribution. In the end, they should find that there are 24 units in each pile, so the quotient is 24.

To multiply, students create a rectangle using the two factors as the length and width. In division, the size of the rectangle and one of the factors is known. Students begin by building one dimension of the rectangle using the divisor. They continue to build the rectangle until they reach the desired dividend. The resulting length (the other dimension) is the quotient. If a student is asked to solve 1369 divided by 37, they begin by laying down three rods and seven cubes to create one dimension of the rectangle. Next, they lay down another 37, continuing the rectangle, and check to see if they have the required 1369 yet. Students who have experience with estimating might begin by laying down three flats and seven rods in a row (rods vertically arranged) since they know that the quotient is going to be larger than ten. As students continue, they may recognize that they can replace groups of ten rods with a flat to make counting easier. They continue until the desired dividend is reached. In this example, students find the quotient is 37.

Changing the Values of Base Ten Blocks

Up until now, the value of the cube has been one unit. For older students, there is no reason why the cube couldn’t represent one tenth, one hundredth, or one million. If the value of the cube is redefined, the other base ten blocks, of course, have to follow. For example, redefining the cube as one tenth means the rod represents one, the flat represents ten, and the block represents one hundred. This redefinition is useful for a decimal question such as 54.2 + 27.6. A common way to redefine base ten blocks is to make the cube one thousandth. This makes the rod one hundredth, the flat one tenth, and the block one whole. Besides the traditional definition, this one makes the most sense, since a block can be divided into 1000 cubes, so it follows logically that one cube is one thousandth of the cube.

Representing and Working With Large Numbers

Numbers don’t stop at 9,999 which is the maximum you can represent with a traditional set of base ten blocks. Fortunately, base ten blocks come in a variety of colors. In math, the ones, tens, and hundreds are called a period. The thousands, ten thousands, and hundred thousands are another period. The millions, ten millions and hundred millions are the third period. This continues where every three place values is called a period. You may have figured out by now that each period can be represented by a different colour of place value block. If you do this, you eliminate the large blocks and just use the cubes, rods, and flats. Let us say that we have three sets of base ten blocks in yellow, green, and blue. We’ll call the yellow base ten blocks the first period (ones, tens, hundreds), the green blocks the second period, and the blue blocks the third period. To represent the number, 56,784,325, use 5 blue rods, 6 blue cubes, 7 green flats, 8 green rods, 4 green cubes, 3 yellow flats, 2 yellow rods, and 5 yellow cubes. When adding and subtracting, trading is accomplished by recognizing that 10 yellow flats can be traded for one green cube, 10 green flats can be traded for one blue cube, and vice-versa.

Integers

Base ten blocks can be used to add and subtract integers. To accomplish this, two colours of base ten blocks are required - one colour for negative numbers and one colour for positive numbers. The zero principle states that an equal number of negatives and an equal number of positives add up to zero. To add using base ten blocks, represent both numbers using base ten blocks, apply the zero principle and read the result. For example (-51) + (+42) could be represented with 5 red rods, 1 red cube, 4 blue rods, and 2 blue cubes. Immediately, the student applies the zero principle to four red and four blue rods and one red and one blue cube. To finish the problem, they trade the remaining red rod for 10 red cubes and apply the zero principle to the remaining blue cube and one of the red cubes. The end result is (-9).

Subtracting means taking away. For instance, (-5) - (-2) is represented by taking two red cubes from a pile of five red cubes. If you can’t take away, the zero principle can be applied in reverse. You can’t take away six blue cubes in (-7) - (+6) because there aren’t six blue cubes. Since a blue cube and a red cube is just zero, and adding zero to a number doesn’t change it, simply include six blue cubes and six red cubes with the pile of seven red cubes. When six blue cubes are taken from the pile, 13 red cubes remain, so the answer to (-7) - (+6) is (-13). This procedure can, of course, be applied to larger numbers, and the process might involve trading.

Other Uses

By no means have I explained all of the uses of base ten blocks, but I have covered most of the major uses. The rest is up to your imagination. Can you think of a use for base ten blocks when teaching powers of ten? How about using base ten blocks for fractions? So many math skills can be learned using base ten blocks simply because they represent our numbering system - the base ten system. Base ten blocks are just one of many excellent manipulatives available to teachers and parents that give students a strong conceptual background in math.

The base ten blocks skills described above can be applied using worksheets from .math-drills.com. The worksheets come with answer keys, so students can get feedback on their ability to correctly use base ten blocks.

Measurement of student achievement through rigorous statewide testing has been a standard in Texas for many years. Houston schools implemented its first merit pay program for teachers in the year 2000.

Houston Schools believe the old program had too low incentives and unanimously passed the new model in January, making it the largest merit pay program in the nation. Officials believe the new program ties teacher rewards more closely to student improvement and to individual teacher efforts. Though no research has been done on the impact of such programs on improved student achievement, other programs have been tried in New York, Denver and Kentucky with varying success.

Houston business leaders, who have a stake in graduating future employees who are high achievers, support the new Houston schools’ $14.5 million program.

Houston schools teacher incentives are based on three components:

• The first component is based upon the amount of improvement of a school’s overall test scores, as compared with scores of 40 other schools across the state with similar demographics;

• The second compares student progress on the Stanford 10 Achievement Test and its Spanish equivalent to students in similar Houston schools classrooms; and

• The third component compares student progress on the statewide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test to similar Houston schools classrooms.

About half of the 12,300 teachers in the Houston schools are eligible to receive rewards in all three categories, possibly earning a total of $3,000 each. The 305 Houston schools principals are eligible to earn as much as $6,000 each, if they have the best achieving teachers. Each of the Houston schools’ 19 executive principals and five regional superintendents are eligible for as much as $25,000.

With 210,000 children, Houston schools is the largest district in the state, and its new program isn’t without opposition.

Teachers unions are typically against teacher merit pay programs, and the Houston Federation of Teachers is no exception. The union represents 40 percent of the Houston schools teachers and believes across-the-board raises and a higher starting wage for new teachers would be more successful in raising student achievement scores. Houston schools start new teachers at $36,050 (lowest in the ten major districts in Texas), and the current Houston schools teachers’ wages are at the lowest end of the nation’s schools.

Many teachers have complained that the program bypasses arts teachers and others with subjects not covered by the testing process. The program excludes special education, preschool and kindergarten teachers, who are the backbone in improving academic achievement in children from low-income families. Additionally, many teachers believe that it forces them to teach to the testing requirements rather than focus on real academic achievement.

The new program also has opened old wounds and raised tensions over the previous merit pay program and its effect upon testing results, which laid the groundwork for a recently exposed cheating scandal. The Texas Education Agency investigated the Houston schools and other districts in 1999 due to suspicious testing results. Houston schools admitted last year that evidence of cheating had been found at four schools and testing irregularities were found at seven others. Eventually, six teachers were fired and several principals were demoted or reprimanded, leaving the city frustrated and bruised by the merit pay program and its ensuing results.

Though the Houston schools’ new teacher merit pay program sounds good in theory, it seems that in practice it is expanding the same old problems encountered with the previous program.

This information on Houston schools is brought to you by .schoolsk-12.com.

By Albert Einstein

The basal principle, which was the pivot of all our previous considerations, was the special principle of relativity, i.e. the principle of the physical relativity of all uniform motion. Let as once more analyze its meaning carefully.

It was at all times clear that, from the point of view of the idea it conveys to us, every motion must be considered only as a relative motion. Returning to the illustration we have frequently used of the embankment and the railway carriage, we can express the fact of the motion here taking place in the following two forms, both of which are equally justifiable :

(a) The carriage is in motion relative to the embankment,

(b) The embankment is in motion relative to the carriage.

In (a) the embankment, in (b) the carriage, serves as the body of reference in our statement of the motion taking place. If it is simply a question of detecting or of describing the motion involved, it is in principle immaterial to what reference-body we refer the motion. As already mentioned, this is self-evident, but it must not be confused with the much more comprehensive statement called “the principle of relativity,” which we have taken as the basis of our investigations.

The principle we have made use of not only maintains that we may equally well choose the carriage or the embankment as our reference-body for the description of any event (for this, too, is self-evident). Our principle rather asserts what follows : If we formulate the general laws of nature as they are obtained from experience, by making use of

(a) the embankment as reference-body,

(b) the railway carriage as reference-body,

then these general laws of nature (e.g. the laws of mechanics or the law of the propagation of light in vacuo) have exactly the same form in both cases. This can also be expressed as follows : For the physical description of natural processes, neither of the reference bodies K, K1 is unique (lit. ” specially marked out “) as compared with the other. Unlike the first, this latter statement need not of necessity hold a priori; it is not contained in the conceptions of ” motion” and ” reference-body ” and derivable from them; only experience can decide as to its correctness or incorrectness.

Up to the present, however, we have by no means maintained the equivalence of all bodies of reference K in connection with the formulation of natural laws. Our course was more on the following lines. In the first place, we started out from the assumption that there exists a reference-body K, whose condition of motion is such that the Galilean law holds with respect to it : A particle left to itself and sufficiently far removed from all other particles moves uniformly in a straight line. With reference to K (Galilean reference-body) the laws of nature were to be as simple as possible. But in addition to K, all bodies of reference K1 should be given preference in this sense, and they should be exactly equivalent to K for the formulation of natural laws, provided that they are in a state of uniform rectilinear and non-rotary motion with respect to K ; all these bodies of reference are to be regarded as Galilean reference-bodies. The validity of the principle of relativity was assumed only for these reference-bodies, but not for others (e.g. those possessing motion of a different kind). In this sense we speak of the special principle of relativity, or special theory of relativity.

In contrast to this we wish to understand by the “general principle of relativity” the following statement : All bodies of reference K, K1, etc., are equivalent for the description of natural phenomena (formulation of the general laws of nature), whatever may be their state of motion. But before proceeding farther, it ought to be pointed out that this formulation must be replaced later by a more abstract one, for reasons which will become evident at a later stage.

Since the introduction of the special principle of relativity has been justified, every intellect which strives after generalization must feel the temptation to venture the step towards the general principle of relativity. But a simple and apparently quite reliable consideration seems to suggest that, for the present at any rate, there is little hope of success in such an attempt; Let us imagine ourselves transferred to our old friend the railway carriage, which is traveling at a uniform rate. As long as it is moving uniformly, the occupant of the carriage is not sensible of its motion, and it is for this reason that he can without reluctance interpret the facts of the case as indicating that the carriage is at rest, but the embankment in motion. Moreover, according to the special principle of relativity, this interpretation is quite justified also from a physical point of view.

If the motion of the carriage is now changed into a non-uniform motion, as for instance by a powerful application of the brakes, then the occupant of the carriage experiences a correspondingly powerful jerk forwards. The retarded motion is manifested in the mechanical behavior of bodies relative to the person in the railway carriage. The mechanical behavior is different from that of the case previously considered, and for this reason it would appear to be impossible that the same mechanical laws hold relatively to the non-uniformly moving carriage, as hold with reference to the carriage when at rest or in uniform motion. At all events it is clear that the Galilean law does not hold with respect to the non-uniformly moving carriage. Because of this, we feel compelled at the present juncture to grant a kind of absolute physical reality to non-uniform motion, in opposition to the general principle of relativity. But in what follows we shall soon see that this conclusion cannot be maintained.

To read more, go to .EffortlessPhysicsLessons.com/relativity/

Stephan Bourget, physicist

Effortless Physics Lessons

.EffortlessPhysicsLessons.com

All theories - scientific or not - start with a problem. They aim to solve it by proving that what appears to be “problematic” is not. They re-state the conundrum, or introduce new data, new variables, a new classification, or new organizing principles. They incorporate the problem in a larger body of knowledge, or in a conjecture (”solution”). They explain why we thought we had an issue on our hands - and how it can be avoided, vitiated, or resolved.

Scientific theories invite constant criticism and revision. They yield new problems. They are proven erroneous and are replaced by new models which offer better explanations and a more profound sense of understanding - often by solving these new problems. From time to time, the successor theories constitute a break with everything known and done till then. These seismic convulsions are known as “paradigm shifts”.

Contrary to widespread opinion - even among scientists - science is not only about “facts”. It is not merely about quantifying, measuring, describing, classifying, and organizing “things” (entities). It is not even concerned with finding out the “truth”. Science is about providing us with concepts, explanations, and predictions (collectively known as “theories”) and thus endowing us with a sense of understanding of our world.

Scientific theories are allegorical or metaphoric. They revolve around symbols and theoretical constructs, concepts and substantive assumptions, axioms and hypotheses - most of which can never, even in principle, be computed, observed, quantified, measured, or correlated with the world “out there”. By appealing to our imagination, scientific theories reveal what David Deutsch calls “the fabric of reality”.

Like any other system of knowledge, science has its fanatics, heretics, and deviants.

Instrumentalists, for instance, insist that scientific theories should be concerned exclusively with predicting the outcomes of appropriately designed experiments. Their explanatory powers are of no consequence. Positivists ascribe meaning only to statements that deal with observables and observations.

Instrumentalists and positivists ignore the fact that predictions are derived from models, narratives, and organizing principles. In short: it is the theory’s explanatory dimensions that determine which experiments are relevant and which are not. Forecasts - and experiments - that are not embedded in an understanding of the world (in an explanation) do not constitute science.

Granted, predictions and experiments are crucial to the growth of scientific knowledge and the winnowing out of erroneous or inadequate theories. But they are not the only mechanisms of natural selection. There are other criteria that help us decide whether to adopt and place confidence in a scientific theory or not. Is the theory aesthetic (parsimonious), logical, does it provide a reasonable explanation and, thus, does it further our understanding of the world?

David Deutsch in “The Fabric of Reality” (p. 11):

“… (I)t is hard to give a precise definition of ‘explanation’ or ‘understanding’. Roughly speaking, they are about ‘why’ rather than ‘what’; about the inner workings of things; about how things really are, not just how they appear to be; about what must be so, rather than what merely happens to be so; about laws of nature rather than rules of thumb. They are also about coherence, elegance, and simplicity, as opposed to arbitrariness and complexity …”

Reductionists and emergentists ignore the existence of a hierarchy of scientific theories and meta-languages. They believe - and it is an article of faith, not of science - that complex phenomena (such as the human mind) can be reduced to simple ones (such as the physics and chemistry of the brain). Furthermore, to them the act of reduction is, in itself, an explanation and a form of pertinent understanding. Human thought, fantasy, imagination, and emotions are nothing but electric currents and spurts of chemicals in the brain, they say.

Holists, on the other hand, refuse to consider the possibility that some higher-level phenomena can, indeed, be fully reduced to base components and primitive interactions. They ignore the fact that reductionism sometimes does provide explanations and understanding. The properties of water, for instance, do spring forth from its chemical and physical composition and from the interactions between its constituent atoms and subatomic particles.

Still, there is a general agreement that scientific theories must be abstract (independent of specific time or place), intersubjectively explicit (contain detailed descriptions of the subject matter in unambiguous terms), logically rigorous (make use of logical systems shared and accepted by the practitioners in the field), empirically relevant (correspond to results of empirical research), useful (in describing and/or explaining the world), and provide typologies and predictions.

A scientific theory should resort to primitive (atomic) terminology and all its complex (derived) terms and concepts should be defined in these indivisible terms. It should offer a map unequivocally and consistently connecting operational definitions to theoretical concepts.

Operational definitions that connect to the same theoretical concept should not contradict each other (be negatively correlated). They should yield agreement on measurement conducted independently by trained experimenters. But investigation of the theory of its implication can proceed even without quantification.

Theoretical concepts need not necessarily be measurable or quantifiable or observable. But a scientific theory should afford at least four levels of quantification of its operational and theoretical definitions of concepts: nominal (labeling), ordinal (ranking), interval and ratio.

As we said, scientific theories are not confined to quantified definitions or to a classificatory apparatus. To qualify as scientific they must contain statements about relationships (mostly causal) between concepts - empirically-supported laws and/or propositions (statements derived from axioms).

Philosophers like Carl Hempel and Ernest Nagel regard a theory as scientific if it is hypothetico-deductive. To them, scientific theories are sets of inter-related laws. We know that they are inter-related because a minimum number of axioms and hypotheses yield, in an inexorable deductive sequence, everything else known in the field the theory pertains to.

Explanation is about retrodiction - using the laws to show how things happened. Prediction is using the laws to show how things will happen. Understanding is explanation and prediction combined.

William Whewell augmented this somewhat simplistic point of view with his principle of “consilience of inductions”. Often, he observed, inductive explanations of disparate phenomena are unexpectedly traced to one underlying cause. This is what scientific theorizing is about - finding the common source of the apparently separate.

This omnipotent view of the scientific endeavor competes with a more modest, semantic school of philosophy of science.

Many theories - especially ones with breadth, width, and profundity, such as Darwin’s theory of evolution - are not deductively integrated and are very difficult to test (falsify) conclusively. Their predictions are either scant or ambiguous.

Scientific theories, goes the semantic view, are amalgams of models of reality. These are empirically meaningful only inasmuch as they are empirically (directly and therefore semantically) applicable to a limited area. A typical scientific theory is not constructed with explanatory and predictive aims in mind. Quite the opposite: the choice of models incorporated in it dictates its ultimate success in explaining the Universe and predicting the outcomes of experiments.

Are psychological theories scientific theories by any definition (prescriptive or descriptive)? Hardly.

First, we must distinguish between psychological theories and the way that some of them are applied (psychotherapy and psychological plots). Psychological plots are the narratives co-authored by the therapist and the patient during psychotherapy. These narratives are the outcomes of applying psychological theories and models to the patient’s specific circumstances.

Psychological plots amount to storytelling - but they are still instances of the psychological theories used. The instances of theoretical concepts in concrete situations form part of every theory. Actually, the only way to test psychological theories - with their dearth of measurable entities and concepts - is by examining such instances (plots).

Storytelling has been with us since the days of campfire and besieging wild animals. It serves a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (predictability and justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce new or additional theories and so on.

We are all endowed with a sense of wonder. The world around us in inexplicable, baffling in its diversity and myriad forms. We experience an urge to organize it, to “explain the wonder away”, to order it so that we know what to expect next (predict). These are the essentials of survival. But while we have been successful at imposing our mind on the outside world &ndash we have been much less successful when we tried to explain and comprehend our internal universe and our behavior.

Psychology is not an exact science, nor can it ever be. This is because its “raw material” (humans and their behavior as individuals and en masse) is not exact. It will never yield natural laws or universal constants (like in physics). Experimentation in the field is constrained by legal and ethical rules. Humans tend to be opinionated, develop resistance, and become self-conscious when observed.

The relationship between the structure and functioning of our (ephemeral) mind, the structure and modes of operation of our (physical) brain, and the structure and conduct of the outside world have been a matter for heated debate for millennia.

Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought:

One camp identify the substrate (brain) with its product (mind). Some of these scholars postulate the existence of a lattice of preconceived, born, categorical knowledge about the universe &ndash the vessels into which we pour our experience and which mould it.

Others within this group regard the mind as a black box. While it is possible in principle to know its input and output, it is impossible, again in principle, to understand its internal functioning and management of information. To describe this input-output mechanism, Pavlov coined the word “conditioning”, Watson adopted it and invented “behaviorism”, Skinner came up with “reinforcement”.

Epiphenomenologists (proponents of theories of emergent phenomena) regard the mind as the by-product of the complexity of the brain’s “hardware” and “wiring”. But all of them ignore the psychophysical question: what IS the mind and HOW is it linked to the brain?

The other camp assumes the airs of “scientific” and “positivist” thinking. It speculates that the mind (whether a physical entity, an epiphenomenon, a non-physical principle of organization, or the result of introspection) has a structure and a limited set of functions. It is argued that a “mind owner’s manual” could be composed, replete with engineering and maintenance instructions. It proffers a dynamics of the psyche.

The most prominent of these “psychodynamists” was, of course, Freud. Though his disciples (Adler, Horney, the object-relations lot) diverged wildly from his initial theories, they all shared his belief in the need to “scientify” and objectify psychology.

Freud, a medical doctor by profession (neurologist) - preceded by another M.D., Josef Breuer &ndash put forth a theory regarding the structure of the mind and its mechanics: (suppressed) energies and (reactive) forces. Flow charts were provided together with a method of analysis, a mathematical physics of the mind.

Many hold all psychodynamic theories to be a mirage. An essential part is missing, they observe: the ability to test the hypotheses, which derive from these “theories”. Though very convincing and, surprisingly, possessed of great explanatory powers, being non-verifiable and non-falsifiable as they are &ndash psychodynamic models of the mind cannot be deemed to possess the redeeming features of scientific theories.

Deciding between the two camps was and is a crucial matter. Consider the clash - however repressed - between psychiatry and psychology. The former regards “mental disorders” as euphemisms - it acknowledges only the reality of brain dysfunctions (such as biochemical or electric imbalances) and of hereditary factors. The latter (psychology) implicitly assumes that something exists (the “mind”, the “psyche”) which cannot be reduced to hardware or to wiring diagrams. Talk therapy is aimed at that something and supposedly interacts with it.

But perhaps the distinction is artificial. Perhaps the mind is simply the way we experience our brains. Endowed with the gift (or curse) of introspection, we experience a duality, a split, constantly being both observer and observed. Moreover, talk therapy involves TALKING - which is the transfer of energy from one brain to another through the air. This is a directed, specifically formed energy, intended to trigger certain circuits in the recipient brain. It should come as no surprise if it were to be discovered that talk therapy has clear physiological effects upon the brain of the patient (blood volume, electrical activity, discharge and absorption of hormones, etc.).

All this would be doubly true if the mind were, indeed, only an emergent phenomenon of the complex brain - two sides of the same coin.

Psychological theories of the mind are metaphors of the mind. They are fables and myths, narratives, stories, hypotheses, conjunctures. They play (exceedingly) important roles in the psychotherapeutic setting &ndash but not in the laboratory. Their form is artistic, not rigorous, not testable, less structured than theories in the natural sciences. The language used is polyvalent, rich, effusive, ambiguous, evocative, and fuzzy &ndash in short, metaphorical. These theories are suffused with value judgments, preferences, fears, post facto and ad hoc constructions. None of this has methodological, systematic, analytic and predictive merits.

Still, the theories in psychology are powerful instruments, admirable constructs, and they satisfy important needs to explain and understand ourselves, our interactions with others, and with our environment.

The attainment of peace of mind is a need, which was neglected by Maslow in his famous hierarchy. People sometimes sacrifice material wealth and welfare, resist temptations, forgo opportunities, and risk their lives &ndash in order to secure it. There is, in other words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis. It is the fulfillment of this overwhelming need that psychological theories cater to. In this, they are no different to other collective narratives (myths, for instance).

Still, psychology is desperately trying to maintain contact with reality and to be thought of as a scientific discipline. It employs observation and measurement and organizes the results, often presenting them in the language of mathematics. In some quarters, these practices lends it an air of credibility and rigorousness. Others snidely regard the as an elaborate camouflage and a sham. Psychology, they insist, is a pseudo-science. It has the trappings of science but not its substance.

Worse still, while historical narratives are rigid and immutable, the application of psychological theories (in the form of psychotherapy) is “tailored” and “customized” to the circumstances of each and every patient (client). The user or consumer is incorporated in the resulting narrative as the main hero (or anti-hero). This flexible “production line” seems to be the result of an age of increasing individualism.

True, the “language units” (large chunks of denotates and connotates) used in psychology and psychotherapy are one and the same, regardless of the identity of the patient and his therapist. In psychoanalysis, the analyst is likely to always employ the tripartite structure (Id, Ego, Superego). But these are merely the language elements and need not be confused with the idiosyncratic plots that are weaved in every encounter. Each client, each person, and his own, unique, irreplicable, plot.

To qualify as a “psychological” (both meaningful and instrumental) plot, the narrative, offered to the patient by the therapist, must be:

All-inclusive (anamnetic) &ndash It must encompass, integrate and incorporate all the facts known about the protagonist.

Coherent &ndash It must be chronological, structured and causal.

Consistent &ndash Self-consistent (its subplots cannot contradict one another or go against the grain of the main plot) and consistent with the observed phenomena (both those related to the protagonist and those pertaining to the rest of the universe).

Logically compatible &ndash It must not violate the laws of logic both internally (the plot must abide by some internally imposed logic) and externally (the Aristotelian logic which is applicable to the observable world).

Insightful (diagnostic) &ndash It must inspire in the client a sense of awe and astonishment which is the result of seeing something familiar in a new light or the result of seeing a pattern emerging out of a big body of data. The insights must constitute the inevitable conclusion of the logic, the language, and of the unfolding of the plot.

Aesthetic &ndash The plot must be both plausible and “right”, beautiful, not cumbersome, not awkward, not discontinuous, smooth, parsimonious, simple, and so on.

Parsimonious &ndash The plot must employ the minimum numbers of assumptions and entities in order to satisfy all the above conditions.

Explanatory &ndash The plot must explain the behavior of other characters in the plot, the hero’s decisions and behavior, why events developed the way they did.

Predictive (prognostic) &ndash The plot must possess the ability to predict future events, the future behavior of the hero and of other meaningful figures and the inner emotional and cognitive dynamics.

Therapeutic &ndash With the power to induce change, encourage functionality, make the patient happier and more content with himself (ego-syntony), with others, and with his circumstances.

Imposing &ndash The plot must be regarded by the client as the preferable organizing principle of his life’s events and a torch to guide him in the dark (vade mecum).

Elastic &ndash The plot must possess the intrinsic abilities to self organize, reorganize, give room to emerging order, accommodate new data comfortably, and react flexibly to attacks from within and from without.

In all these respects, a psychological plot is a theory in disguise. Scientific theories satisfy most of the above conditions as well. But this apparent identity is flawed. The important elements of testability, verifiability, refutability, falsifiability, and repeatability &ndash are all largely missing from psychological theories and plots. No experiment could be designed to test the statements within the plot, to establish their truth-value and, thus, to convert them to theorems or hypotheses in a theory.

There are four reasons to account for this inability to test and prove (or falsify) psychological theories:

Ethical &ndash Experiments would have to be conducted, involving the patient and others. To achieve the necessary result, the subjects will have to be ignorant of the reasons for the experiments and their aims. Sometimes even the very performance of an experiment will have to remain a secret (double blind experiments). Some experiments may involve unpleasant or even traumatic experiences. This is ethically unacceptable.

The Psychological Uncertainty Principle &ndash The initial state of a human subject in an experiment is usually fully established. But both treatment and experimentation influence the subject and render this knowledge irrelevant. The very processes of measurement and observation influence the human subject and transform him or her - as do life’s circumstances and vicissitudes.

Uniqueness &ndash Psychological experiments are, therefore, bound to be unique, unrepeatable, cannot be replicated elsewhere and at other times even when they are conducted with the SAME subjects. This is because the subjects are never the same due to the aforementioned psychological uncertainty principle. Repeating the experiments with other subjects adversely affects the scientific value of the results.

The undergeneration of testable hypotheses &ndash Psychology does not generate a sufficient number of hypotheses, which can be subjected to scientific testing. This has to do with the fabulous (=storytelling) nature of psychology. In a way, psychology has affinity with some private languages. It is a form of art and, as such, is self-sufficient and self-contained. If structural, internal constraints are met &ndash a statement is deemed true even if it does not satisfy external scientific requirements.

So, what are psychological theories and plots good for? They are the instruments used in the procedures which induce peace of mind (even happiness) in the client. This is done with the help of a few embedded mechanisms:

The Organizing Principle &ndash Psychological plots offer the client an organizing principle, a sense of order, meaningfulness, and justice, an inexorable drive toward well defined (though, perhaps, hidden) goals, the feeling of being part of a whole. They strive to answer the “why’s” and “how’s” of life. They are dialogic. The client asks: “why am I (suffering from a syndrome) and how (can I successfully tackle it)”. Then, the plot is spun: “you are like this not because the world is whimsically cruel but because your parents mistreated you when you were very young, or because a person important to you died, or was taken away from you when you were still impressionable, or because you were sexually abused and so on”. The client is becalmed by the very fact that there is an explanation to that which until now monstrously taunted and haunted him, that he is not the plaything of vicious Gods, that there is a culprit (focusing his diffuse anger). His belief in the existence of order and justice and their administration by some supreme, transcendental principle is restored. This sense of “law and order” is further enhanced when the plot yields predictions which come true (either because they are self-fulfilling or because some real, underlying “law” has been discovered).

The Integrative Principle &ndash The client is offered, through the plot, access to the innermost, hitherto inaccessible, recesses of his mind. He feels that he is being reintegrated, that “things fall into place”. In psychodynamic terms, the energy is released to do productive and positive work, rather than to induce distorted and destructive forces.

The Purgatory Principle &ndash In most cases, the client feels sinful, debased, inhuman, decrepit, corrupting, guilty, punishable, hateful, alienated, strange, mocked and so on. The plot offers him absolution. The client’s suffering expurgates, cleanses, absolves, and atones for his sins and handicaps. A feeling of hard won achievement accompanies a successful plot. The client sheds layers of functional, adaptive stratagems rendered dysfunctional and maladaptive. This is inordinately painful. The client feels dangerously naked, precariously exposed. He then assimilates the plot offered to him, thus enjoying the benefits emanating from the previous two principles and only then does he develop new mechanisms of coping. Therapy is a mental crucifixion and resurrection and atonement for the patient’s sins. It is a religious experience. Psychological theories and plots are in the role of the scriptures from which solace and consolation can be always gleaned.

Watching the news the other day, it occurred to me that people who have “words to live by” often begin to attack and even kill others. I thought back to my own angry youth, when I could easily use words to justify violent thoughts which might have become violent actions. Words are tools, and yet it seems that they can be more dangerous than gunpowder.

Imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One is pointing at a tornado that is coming, and the other at a raging fire headed towards them. Each sees their own truth and is angry at the sight of the other’s hand. Each feels that the other’s hand is “wrong.” This may seem silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.

We point past each other with our words, arguing as though we are looking at the same facts and experiences. We want to prove our words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other’s words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.

There Are No Words To Live By

This isn’t just about communication with others. We focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We call things “right” or “wrong” for example, according to how they compare to our “definitions.” Unlike mathematics, though, word formulas and definitions can never be so precise. They cannot encompass the whole truth of reality. For example, with the least effort, you can create a circumstance where “stealing” would be right, and “helping” someone wrong.

This isn’t an argument against using language or logic. It is just that both only go so far. Like a car that takes you across the country or world, they are useful, but like a car, they are only useful in certain ways, and you have to get out of them when you arrive at your various destinations. Taking a car to the lake isn’t a problem, but taking it into the lake is. This is what we do when our words and logic take us to dangerous situations.

Can having words to live by be dangerous, though? Absolutely. I once heard an otherwise compassionate person say he was against animal cruelty laws because he couldn’t find a logical and defensible set of words to defend them. If he saw a new machine, would he refuse to believe it existed until he could explain it and describe it? Reality, and the reality of right and wrong exist outside of words - they are not the words themselves.

I watched a man say on the evening news that we have the right to drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq, and that we should. As he explained why, you could see that whatever compassionate impulses he had, they were over-ruled by his total allegiance to his words, logic, and where these take him. It never occurred to him that maybe there is truth outside of his words and logic.

It’s great to have guidelines, like “don’t lie,” or “we have the right to defend ourselves.” It is even better to remember that these rules will someday fail us, and we will have to make new ones. Words are just tools. There are words to die by, but there are no words to live by.

Gossip fans are everywhere, in all countries, in all cities, on all continents. Since old ages, people just liked gossip and rumors, they enjoyed talking about their peers when they were not around. Celebrities are included on the gossip topics most agreed list. Celebrity gossip makes the news so many times, so it is obvious that it is in the human nature to notice the leaders, the people who stand out from the crowd, and dissect their words, their clothes, their hair or their behaviour.

Celebrities like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears made the first page of many international publications, and not only once. Some of the famous people of this world had to suffer because of paparazzi, and in some cases, they even lost their lives because of indiscrete looks. Princess Diana is only one example in this respect. She got killed in a car accident while she and her friend were chased by scandal journalists. Is a human life worth all that? I suppose not. But time cannot be turned back, so it’s time to head for the future and try to avoid such catastrophes from now on.

But who decides which celebrities make news headlines and which ones pass barely noticed? Is mass media responsible for this? It is very hard to tell. Journalists, and especially tabloid magazines ones are searching for a particular type of news. They seek things that are blamable or shocking, and many times they chase misery. Happiness is not news. Misery is. If a movie star has troubles, let’s say she is stealing from supermarkets, this seems to be a hot topic for millions of people. Do you remember Winona Rider, to give you only one case of a star chased by media for her supposedly bad habits? How many other people steal from shops and nobody cares? Too many, probably.

One simple explanation for the love for gossip, and for the important place it occupies in humans’ life, is that most of the people live a dull, boring life, so they seek excitement in the life of others. This explains also the success recorded by reality shows. Who would have thought that a time will come when millions of TV viewers will watch every night for one hour or so how a bunch of people are eating, sleeping or taking showers in a house where they are like in prison, all time in the objective of cameras.

Have you noticed how appreciated the celebrity gossip websites are, how many readers they have and how many comments they receive on each article? This surely shows a huge interest for the private life of successful people, a desire to take models, and on the other hand to accuse and reveal ugly things from beautiful lives of remarkable people. Like sex, drugs and rock and roll, celebrity sells. Every hosewife has dreamed at least once to become a great dancer, or a famous singer, or a Hollywood movie star. Instead of that, here she is, at the age of 30 or 40, washing dishes and taking care of four - five kids who mess everything around the house and who are equal to an atomic bomb.