Meanderings, 26 August 2023

Good morning, friends! I find about 1 of 5 of these Meanderings. Here is my oft-expressed thanks to Kris and others who pass interesting reads on to me for Meanderings.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

The value of saying hello and having conversations:

Before Gillian Sandstrom became a psychologist, she was a computer programmer. Then she decided to change tracks and pursue a degree in psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. And she felt like she didn't fit in.

"I was 10 years older than my fellow students," Sandstrom recalls. "I wasn't sure I was meant to be there. I didn't instantly feel like a part of that community."

Enter the hot dog lady.

On her daily walk from one university building to another, Sandstrom would pass a hot dog stand.

"I never bought a hot dog, but every time I walked past, I would smile and wave at her and she'd smile and wave at me," she says.

Sandstrom remembers looking forward to this daily interaction. This brief exchange with a stranger made her feel less isolated.

"She made me feel happy," she says. "I felt better after seeing her and worse if she wasn't there."

Years later, that type of brief but happy encounter inspired Sandstrom to design a study that looks at the benefits of social connections — encounters, even brief ones, with strangers, acquaintances and anyone outside our close circle of family, friends and colleagues.

Chicago’s wondrous Piping Plovers:

CHICAGO — Another piping plover nesting season has come and gone at Montrose Beach bird sanctuary. Because of the work of conservationists, the incredible love story of piping plovers “Monty” and “Rose” continues.

At sunrise one recent morning, photographer and birder Matthew Dolkart, 39, was there to photograph the beloved birds.

“This is kind of the spot where you’ll see most of the shore birds resting in the morning or even during the day,” he said. “They’ll be foraging at the shoreline.”

Surrounded by only the beach and the birds, we’re listening for a low-pitched peep. That is Imani: Chicago’s piping plover, the offspring of Montrose beach’s namesake lovebirds Monty and Rose. The couple first nested at the beach in 2019.

“They came back in 2020, and 2021 again – and 2021 that’s where Imani came from,” Dolkart said. “That was Imani’s origin story.”

Only a bit bigger than baseballs, the brownish-grey piping plovers almost blend in with the sand. They scurry, scamper, dart and dash with a lovable puffiness and an almost cartoonish quickness.

“They carry such an adorableness to them, right?” Dolkhart said. “Especially their chicks. If you’ve ever seen their chicks, they look like a children’s’ art project: big fluffy cotton balls with toothpick stick legs.”

Dolkart has connected to the birding community with his camera, taking astonishing photos from close range, at the level of the birds themselves – on the sand.  They can be seen on his Instagram account.

“He’s got a real eye for a good photograph of a bird and he gets low,” fellow birder Terry Walsh said. “I’m too old to get down in the sand, so I always know if it’s matt taking pictures of birds because he’s on his belly.”

Dolkart said his photographs help document a moment in time and preserve it for all to see.

Dru Johnson’s rule for note-taking:

When studied side-by-side, computer note taking is clearly inferior to handwritten class notes. For most of us, that’s really all we need to know. But for some of us, we want to know exactly why computer note-takers don’t learn as much–typically getting lower grades.

We’re all thinking we know why: students are surfing the internet in class! Of course, this is part of the problem. Students and professors alike report widespread distractions in class with students supposedly taking notes on computers. However, it’s only part of the problem and not the main reason that handwritten notes are superior to typed notes.

Studies have shown that writing by hand increases our memory, makes for better understanding in our brains, and better understanding when our brains encounter our handwritten notes again for test preparation. Or in techno-speak: “longhand notes may have superior external storage as well as superior encoding functions.” Of course, computer users type way more information than their pen-clawing peers. Ironically, their notes are not as useful to them. They end up with more and lower quality content from their lectures, undigested and hastily tapped “data” that doesn’t ultimately help them.”

Even when allowed to review notes after a week’s delay, participants who had taken notes with laptops performed worse on tests of both factual content and conceptual understanding, relative to participants who had taken notes longhand.

Students know what’s up–computers distract. But deploying the cost-benefit analysis, they wrongly presume it all equals out. “Even when students admit that laptops are a distraction, they believe the benefits outweigh the costs.” However, research has consistently shown that the benefits don’t outweigh and end up depreciating their whole academic experience. Studies found “that students using laptops are not on task during lectures, show decreased academic performance, and are actually less satisfied with their education than their peers who do not use laptops in class.” Read that last clause again for good measure.

Why do typed notes in class produce such academic blether on the digital page? Here’s what researchers think and professors have noticed. For most, we can type as fast as we can think. When touch-typing, we tend to view our notes as dictations and attempt to copy lectures word-for-word, or as much as we can. Because we are basically acting like court-room stenographers, we are not remembering the lecture content as well either. It’s passing through, but we don’t get that good of a look at it.

With the loving labor of handwritten notes, we are forced to process what we hear and see in class, organizing and summarizing the lecture. This is how deeper learning and memory happens: engaging, reflecting, and writing all cooperate to deepen learning. “The students who were taking longhand notes in our studies were forced to be more selective–because you can’t write as fast as you can type. And that extra processing of the material that they were doing benefited them.”

Beans, beans, the magical longevity legume:

Beans, beans, the magical … longevity food?

True, these tiny, unassuming morsels are filling and nutritious, and as a basis of a plant-based diet, good for the planet as well. But how could the family of legumes — which includes beans, peas, lentils and chickpeas — help us live longer?

“In every blue zone I have visited, beans and other legumes were — and still are — a major component of the daily diet,” said author and entrepreneur Dan Buettner, who has spent decades reporting on “blue zones,” unique communities around the globe where people live long and heathy lives, up to and past 100 years.

Residents of these areas share a common environment and lifestyle — including a plant-based diet — that scientists believe contribute to their longevity. Blue zones have been discovered in Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Loma Linda, California; and the Italian island of Sardinia, just off the coast of Italy.

In Sardinia, where one of the first groups of centenarians was studied, garbanzo and fava are the legumes of choice, Buettner said. Also known as chickpeas, garbanzos are the prime ingredients of a minestrone that is usually eaten at more than one meal, allowing the residents of Sardinia to get the benefits of beans at least twice a day. …

All members of the legume family are full of nutrients, including copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, folic acid, zinc, lysine, which is an essential amino acid, and lots of protein and fiber.

“Fiber rewards you with a healthy gut microbe and lower inflammation and better immune function, said Buettner, noting that “only 5% to 10% of Americans get the fiber they need.”

Each type of bean has a different nutritional profile, so eating a variety of beans may be best, Buettner said. Aduki, or the red mung bean, has more fiber than many other varieties, while fava beans are packed with the antioxidant lutein. Black and dark red kidney beans are full of potassium and chickpeas have lots of magnesium.

“Beans are also packed with plant protein, which is healthier because it has more nutrients with fewer calories than animal protein,” he added.

[SMcK: maybe it’s about tooting.]

Kids need to be kids:

Republicans and Democrats finally agree on something: Kids need time to be kids.

That’s the upshot of recent bipartisan efforts aimed at giving children more freedom to do things like play outside or walk to school alone — sometimes referred to as “free-range parenting” or “reasonable childhood independence” laws.

Since 2018, eight states have passed legislation to ensure parents aren’t punished for giving their kids greater independence when appropriate — including Montana, Connecticut, Virginia, and Illinois — this year.

Supporters of the laws say “helicopter parenting” has made it harder for kids to become confident, well-rounded individuals.

“It’s almost like we’re killing kids with kindness,” said Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience.

In 2008, Skenazy made national headlines when she wrote a column explaining why she let her 9-year-old ride the New York City subway alone. Since then, she’s become one of the faces of the “free-range parenting” movement — a philosophy that encourages kids to be more independent through activities like unsupervised playtime.

“We really have to renormalize the idea that kids can have some time just with other kids, or with themselves, not on devices but out in the world being part of things,” she said.

Activities that were once thought of as important childhood milestones have almost disappeared entirely.

For example, about 10% of kids walked or biked to school in 2017, down from 42% in 1969.

Today, many parents are more actively involved than ever but research suggests those good intentions can undermine their children’s own sense of competence.

Skenazy thinks some of that overreach is due to imprecise laws, which have left well-meaning parents vulnerable to investigations.

A Texas mother was arrested in 2021 after asking her 8-year-old son to walk a half-mile home through a suburban neighborhood in Waco. She was charged with endangering a child — a felony in the state — after someone saw the boy walking alone and called the police.

Something similar happened in an affluent Chicago suburb back in 2018. A neighbor contacted authorities after seeing a young girl walking a dog alone. Although the 8-year-old was just a block away from home, her mother was investigated for neglect.

More than 37% of all U.S. children experience a child protective services investigation by age 18, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Most of those investigations involve allegations of neglect, but that definition varies from state to state.

Now, lawmakers in red and blue states are passing legislation to make it clear what is and isn’t considered neglect.