TEMPLE GRANDIN ON TEDD

 l like this.

GRIT

I watched a TED talk on education a few days ago on PBS. One of the speakers, named Angela Duckworth, spoke about "grit." Duckworth is a psychology professor who previously taught math in middle school and high school. She'd wondered why some students succeeded and others failed. It's the  same reason some adults succeed and others fail. Why do some very talented artists never get past art school? Why do some less talented artists get those big gallery shows? Why do some writers become published? Why do other more talented writers never bother to submit their story at all? Duckworth defines grit as,"sticking with things over the very long term until you master them." She wrote an analysis on grit that you can read here. In it she wrote, "the gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina."

It's funny because she says that IQ is easily testable but grit is not. She also said in her talk on PBS that she hasn't concluded how to teach "grit." I would like to inject my own opinion here and say that perhaps you cannot teach grit. It's something you're born with. 

I will say that even though I do think you're born with it I think teachers can certainly encourage all kids to be more gritty. I don't know how well it will stick with everyone. I just know from experience that you can't force someone to do something that they don't want to do. My sister has a lot of untapped talent but there's no amount of pushing that will get her to continue to write or submit a story to anyone. What teachers can instill is a confidence in children and I think that'll go a long way to adding that grittiness that is so needed. 

Test your grit here.

Below is Duckworth's 2009's talk on grit:

SIMON & SCHUSTER TITLES LESS AT B&N

Sorry for the silence. I've been traveling quite a bit. But back to business. I've seen some great books that I'd like to share but first I want to briefly talk about the situation with B&N and S&S. This really bothers me. B&N is asking that S&S pay more money to display its titles and it wants a higher discount for S&S books. S&S doesn't want to give in to BN's demands... so... BN has limited its stock on S&S titles in its stores. This, to me, seems like a monopoly. BN doesn't have any competitors any more (not brick and motor stores anyway) and now has decided to make these demands because it can get away with it. Why not? Borders isn't around any more to say, hey: we'll take your books for the standard deal.

I read an article that pitied BN, saying that Amazon was a big competitor so now BN needs to get its money in other ways. I have a different perspective and this is coming from experience. Trust me. BN is making TOO MANY MISTAKES and this is its own fault. Because BN is making these mistakes, publishers shouldn't be punished.

1) Amazon has a far superior search engine. Books are easy to look up. You can misspell things and still find what you're looking for. Go to BN and try to look up something when you get the title slight wrong or you misspell the author's name wrong. Ooops! Nothing comes up. This has been like this for years! BN has had PLENTY of time to hire the right people to fix this. They haven't. Mistake number one.

2) Trying to compete with the likes of Apple. Apple has been around for a good long time and makes amazing products. It's unclear to me as to why BN thought it could come along and produce a product in a few years and think it could compete with that. Loss of market share there.

3) BN has no competitors and sells books yet it instead has decided to focus on toys, soap, dumb gift items, and so on. The one thing BN has that Amazon and other online retailers do not have is BOOKSELLERS. People who are there to recommend great new titles and HANDSELL. But instead of advertising that key element... instead of making sure that the good and knowledgable stick around, they treat the employees like inconsequential elements: people who are there to stock shelves and pick books up off the floor. BN could be a force to recon with if they got the right employees and advertised as such. Heck, they even HAVE some but don't care to use them properly. Example: having a trained opera singer working with the literature books even though she asked to be put with the music. Having a school teacher working with travel books. Huh? The stores aren't run right. It's sad. It could be game over faster than it has to be.

I'm siding with S&S on this one. Sorry BN.

ANOTHER DAY AT THE BOOKSTORE...

I was going through some of my papers and found a doodle done by my friend Julia, who used to work at the bookstore with me (until she came to her senses and quit):

JIM FLORA'S CHILDREN'S BOOK

KENNY SCHARF PAINTS AN AIRPLANE. PRETTY COOL.

"I never know what I'm gonna do... I just... kinda... do it." Love that quote.

TAXES!

This is tax day... I mean tax week. I'm not really sure how long this is going to take me. Awful. Just plain awful. I'll give you an example: I have to go to CVS to get a copy of the list of meds and all of the copays I've paid for the year. I have to print out all of my bank statements for the year... only every time I go on the site it logs me out after about 3 or 4 min so I can't print them all out. Arg! I'm trying to put this all in Excel so that I can make a nice spreadsheet of all of this. Who knows how long all of this is going to take. 

Anyhow... I got distracted. I found this video and thought it was cool:

Now I've decided I want this artist's print. It'll go nicely in the studio perhaps. 

TOM SGOUROS, ARTIST, PAINTER

One of my classes at RISD was taught by Tom Sgouros. He was legally blind and when we had our crits he got an inch from each piece so that he could see it... or at least what he could potentially see. From some of his comments I wondered if he could see much at all. There was some art that he pointed to saying that he thought was great that I thought was horrible and other art that he didn't like at all that I thought was quite accomplished. When he brought us to his studio there was row after row of almost the same painting. A line for the horizon and colorful clouds floating above. He'd arrange the clouds differently... use more muted colors in some paintings and brighter colors in others, but essentially he was repeating himself. He called them "remembered landscapes.' His old work was very realistic--the art before he lost his eye sight. I really had no appreciation for him at all when I received my grade for the semester: It was a B. I didn't think I deserved a B and wondered if a man who couldn't see the artwork should be teaching (this was coming from the brain of a cocky college kid so please keep this in mind).

Anyhow, Tom has passed away recently and after watching the video below I realized something: His tale is the exact kind of thing that I'd make a picture book about. He had all the perseverance one could possibly muster. He never gave up and he made the most out of a bad situation. He kept painting despite the loss of his sight. One must deeply admire that.