02 Feb 2006 - 19:28

what is an hour?

Google Master just asked a question:

I saw the Time Timers when you posted about them previously, and I visited the website, but I still don't understand the purpose of a Time Timer???

I'm glad you asked!

I'd been seeing Time Timers in special needs catalogues forever, and they always looked cool.

They are also expensive. Just like everything else in special needs catalogues. The kind of toy you pick up for ten bucks at Toys R Us will set you back 50 when you buy its slightly adapted version from a special needs outfit.

People say it's a Market Thing, but I have my doubts.

I think it's a School Funding thing, just like textbooks. Schools have to buy stuff from these outfits & taxpayers have to pay for the stuff, so when it comes to pricing the sky's the limit.

I could be wrong.

In any case, it used to make me nuts trying to scrape together a few hundred dollars to buy the Boardmaker pictures all schools & special ed programs universally use for their 'PECS' (Picture Exchange Communication System) pictures because there wasn't anything else out there. The pictures were wretched, and had 'jaggies' all over the place ('jaggies' are the jagged edges that show up on curved lines drawn on a computer).^*

Jimmy couldn't tell what they were at all.

I wish I could find the Boardmaker image for underarm. It was outrageous. An abstract jaggie-edged-computer drawing of a torso with no head and no stomach and one arm raised up (no forearms or hands, either). Very informative.

Here's a good one:






So take Jimmy, a kid with severe autism, a kid who can't read & who's squinting and not making eye contact and never looking directly at anything, and hand him one of these card, and he's supposed to see what?

No breaking things?

That's what got me off on my Great Clip Art Quest. I spent about 6 months of my life ferociously tracking down every last bit of decent, free clip art the internet had to offer, in hopes I'd have some images that actually made sense. I just wish I'd known Google Master back then.

Andrew, on the other hand, was a freaking PECS genius. He could understand any wonky jaggie-edged piece of lousy computer drawing you threw at him. I remember one time, when he was 4 & we'd just moved to Westchesteer, he went to the refrigerator where I had the PECS cards taped up and pulled off the Boardmaker picture representing 'hot tub,' because it was getting to be spring, and he wanted to go in the hot tub!

Very few adults would have known that picture represented hot tub if they hadn't been able to read the label, but he took one look at it and went: HOT TUB. I WANT IT. (Who knows. Maybe he read the label, too.)

Here's a photo of a child with his PECS system:





And here's a nice, large image of a PECS board.




back on topic

So, Time Timers.

I got thinking about the Time Timers again when I read The Organized Student by Donna Goldberg.

She has an interesting chapter on time management that struck me as probably sensible:

[In order to manage time well one must have] an ability to accurately gauge how long things take: What does an hour feel like and how much can I really accomplish in that time?

[snip]

Unfortunately, time management is not part of the school curriculum. In fact, many adults still feel like they're playing catch-up for the same reason that so many students feel left behind: no one ever taught them how to manage their time. This is a basic skill that should be taught just like reading, writing, and arithmetic....Many children can tell you that it's 12:30 and time for lunch, but they cannot gauge how long it will take them to eat or how much time they have left before the next class begins, just as many adults know what time an appointment is, but don't leave enough time to get there or forget to account for traffic. [ed.: or, umm, in my case, leave at the last possible moment and PRAY the traffic will cooperate]

Most adults actually have the skill of the average third grader when it comes to understanding time. By the age of nine, our education in the field of time is effectively over; once you can distinguish betewen the big hand and the little hand, you're on your own. You may not have the opportunity to learn time management skills until your company hires a corporate consultant to teach you and your colleagues how to increase efficiency through time management. [ed.: OBVIOUS HONKING RELEVANCE TO SPIRALLING CURRICULA ] Employers make the investment because...if they can train their employees to do more work in less time the company will profit. If we as parents and teachers are willing to make that same investment in our children, imagine how much they will profit, both in school and beyond.


The Struggle Today

There are two reasons today's students are struggling with the concept of time even more than students did in past generations. The first is that children are being taught to tell time at an earlier age. What used to be taught in the second and third grades is now being introduced as early as kindergarten. Most children, however are not developmentally ready to understand the idea of time at the age of five...but once it's taught...the class moves one.

The second reason children are struggling more now is that they've grown up in the age of the digital clock...Time appears on a digital clock as a statement of "now." It says nothing about the past or future and it doesn't place the present time in the context of the hour or the day. When time has no context, it has no appreciable meaning. Conversely, an analog clock with a numbered face and moving hands shows the present time in relation to the past and future (before the hour and after the hour) and is broken down into increments (hours, minutes, and seconds) that work together to create a whole picture...Their understanding of time has no depth or movement, and they do not see time in relative terms, which makes it hard to gauge how long things take and to plan realistically.

[snip]

Kids who don't understand time, however, are usually overlooked and don't get the help they need. All through school they have difficulty meeting deadlines and completing their work. They are constantly rushing, often late, and frequently unprepared.

in a nutshell

• kids lack time management skills because they lack time sense, period

• telling time is taught at school; time comprehension is not (call for constructivists!)

• kids today have 2 disadvantages making their time sense even worse than ours:

• 1. they're taught to tell time too early

• 2. they're surrounded by digital clocks

what is an hour?

Goldberg drew these ideas about time from the book About Dyslexia by Priscilla Vail, which apparently tracks dyslexic kids' difficulties grade by grade as they go through school.

I don't know whether Vail is right or wrong, but the idea intrigues me. One of the children I know who's most disorganized can't read an analog clock. This is a super-smart kid. Can't read analog time. Maybe it's a coincidence. Or maybe not.

As far as I know, the concept of 'hourly' time is pretty much an artificial construct; I don't think it's something we're born knowing, right.

In contrast, it does seem to me that 'day' and 'night' are built-in; probably something like winter and spring are, too.

Assuming that's true, 'what is an hour' probably ought to be taught directly like everything else.

Goldberg suggests various exercises, like having your child time one minute on a stop watch to see how long one minute actually is. (When I was a kid, we always found out how long one minute actually is by trying to hold our breath for a minute. Don't kids still do that?)

She also says kids need to learn how long various tasks take to do. That's important for a person like me who's constantly thinking she can 'whip things off.'

For instance, more than halfway through my second STUPENDOUSLY HUGE Saxon Math book, I actually do not know how long it takes me to do a full lesson.

I have a vague idea that it takes maybe 45 minutes. 45 minutes or less.

So I start doing a lesson at....10, when I'm already too tired to be doing math, including easy math.

Then at 11 I think: wow, this is taking a long time.

Pretty much the story of my life.

What I like about the Time Timer is that it 'times' time — you can actually see your allotted period of time disappearing. (ok, when I put it that way, I think: why don't we not and say we did?)

I'll probably use it for Christopher, Andrew, & me.





Time Timer website




^*Now they've got smooth edges & the program costs $300. This is very primitive software we're talking about, or it was when I had to buy it. $300.




Yes, I'd be happy, too if I were selling a lousy software package to financially strapped parents and captive school districts for three hundred bucks a pop.

I'll probably regret writing that.






some books that have changed my life
the answer to all of Doug's problems
productivity question
what is an hour? Time Timers
Steve & Susan J & Doug on spiralling curricula
my Time Timer came - how long is a nap?
Time Timer says no!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

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Catherine: I've often wondered the same thing about various "special needs" products. Certain software programs re social skills or one of those "chairs" that look like a ball would be great for Megan, but then you see the price....and try to get the school to buy it.

I've thought about a Time Timer--Megan can tell time (and beware if you are a minute late or early). Homework is 6:35. Not 6:34, or 6:30. It MUST be 6:35.

But instead I resort to answering how long an hour is with, "Like 4 episodes of Sponge Bob" or "2 My Little Pony Cartoons" or "As long as it takes to get to that part in Cinderella when..." It changes depending on the fixation of the month.

-- KathyIggy - 02 Feb 2006

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If you want to get a real appreciation for time, work in food service, particularly in fast food or delivery with a deadline.

"OK, you have 7 minutes to deliver the first order, you have 19 and 20 minutes to, respectively, deliver the other two. Don't screw up."

There's nothing quite like that for learning efficiency and time management.

For that matter, preparing a complex home-cooked meal and timing everything so it's all ready at the right time or times teaches much the same, but that's increasingly rare.

-- DougSundseth - 02 Feb 2006

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But instead I resort to answering how long an hour is with, "Like 4 episodes of Sponge Bob" or "2 My Little Pony Cartoons" or "As long as it takes to get to that part in Cinderella when..." It changes depending on the fixation of the month.

I'm interested in autistic kids' sense of time.

Andrew has a sense of time like a dog's; he knows EXACTLY when it's 6:30 PM and time for Ed to come up to the kitchen. It's amazing.

IIRC, Ed used to have 4 creatures lobbying him on the dot of 6:30, both dogs & both autistic kids!

(Autistic kids may also be able to tell the exact dead-center of a room, too, and for similar reasons....)

However, I don't know whether that kind of time sense translates to knowing-how-long-the-KUMON-sheets take...

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

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"OK, you have 7 minutes to deliver the first order, you have 19 and 20 minutes to, respectively, deliver the other two. Don't screw up

That would do it.

I'm not horrible with meal preparation (timing) but I'm not great, either.

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

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My first ever job for money was a summer job after my freshman year of engineering school. I worked behind the lines in the cafeteria at which my brother worked full-time.

Like all of the other line-servers, I started on the bread line because it's simple. By the end of the summer I had been "promoted" to the vegetable line.

If you have ever been to a Luby's or a Piccadilly (both Southern institutions, so I'm not sure you'd have them in Irvington), you're familiar with the concept of a Luanne platter* or a Dilly Plate: one small portion of entree, plus two sides and a bread serving.

The two sides are where people get stuck, especially the children. There were probably 12 or 15 different vegetable sides available. After dealing with the mothers who spent far too much time asking their six-year-olds what they wanted, I silently thanked the ones who instantly requested French fries and mashed potatoes, or mashed potatoes and corn, or corn and mac 'n' cheese, even as I was biting my tongue at their choice of two starches. At least they were moving the line along!

Our manager mandated that, during the busy lunch hour, we should be shuttling 90 people through the line every 15 minutes, which gives each customer an average 10 seconds at the vegetable counter.

* Not to be confused with Luanne Platter, Hank Hill's niece on "King of the Hill".

-- GoogleMaster - 02 Feb 2006

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Our manager mandated that, during the busy lunch hour, we should be shuttling 90 people through the line every 15 minutes, which gives each customer an average 10 seconds at the vegetable counter.

That's like doctors at HMOs!

-- CatherineJohnson - 02 Feb 2006

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Googlemaster,

When I lived in Baton Rouge I went to Piccadilly's all the time. Good food, at least in La..

-- CarolynJohnston - 02 Feb 2006

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Since we're talking about time perception and task management for kids, I should probably mention my son's new toothbrush.

Somewhere or other, my wife found a toothbrush with a built-in timer. It flashes for a minute when you bend it (or twist it, or shake it all about ... or something). Alex knows to keep brushing until it stops the second time.

It seems pretty bizarre, but it also seems to work pretty well.

-- DougSundseth - 03 Feb 2006

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Another personal hygiene time management tip:

When washing your hands, after getting them wet and applying soap, scrub them together for the length of time that it takes you to sing either the alphabet song or Twinkle Twinkle (which are the same song) at a normal tempo. That will be about 20 seconds.

-- GoogleMaster - 03 Feb 2006

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Somewhere or other, my wife found a toothbrush with a built-in timer.

The Braun battery-operated toothbrushes all do this (I've used one for years). They stop every minute and pulse (i.e., turn on and off) 4 times. After the first minute you switch the row of teeth you're brushing from upper to lower.

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Feb 2006

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After the second minute, you stop.

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Feb 2006

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I'm interested in autistic kids' sense of time.

Ben's is awful.

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Feb 2006

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Here's a story from second or third grade. Ben and I got to his school maybe 5 or 10 minutes late, and we went into his classroom, and hung up his coat. And he turned around and said to his classmates, "did you have lunch without me?"

Was I ever mortified!.. another Cognitive Abyss opens up at my feet (Cognitive Abyss is a catchphrase in our family, like no-common-sensy is in Catherine's).

After that we started talking about time explicitly as often as we could remember to. We'd talk about (for example) what the kids would be doing if we got there 5 or 10 minutes late. Just saying the pledge or something... not having lunch.

Ben's sense of space is excellent and his sense of time is lousy. Is Andrew's reversed?

-- CarolynJohnston - 03 Feb 2006

WebLogForm
Title:	what is an hour?
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	CognitiveScience, EducationResearch
LogDate:	200602021428