Upon meeting someone, instead of asking, "What do you do?" I prefer asking, "What do you love to do?" That always stops people. Their eyes soften, and they smile. "What do I love to do?" Sadly, it usually it has nothing to do with their work.

The problem is that our society does not teach us to value what we really love. It teaches us to value what we are good at. How many people do you know who are really good at their jobs but hate what they do for a living? Think for a moment. It's staggering.

In the last few years, I've become acutely aware of just where the culprit might lie.

My daughter and I have just finished the college slog, and she is off to her freshman year in a matter of weeks. The journey wasn't easy. Over and over again at colleges around the country I heard admissions people with starched shirts and neat scarves shooting what felt to me like verbal bullets to a room full of prospective students, such as "Who here is good at math? Raise your hand."

Half the room would groan. Half would raise their hands.

"Okay — for those of you with raised hands, you might want to declare Accounting as your major. Accounting majors are guaranteed jobs out of college."

Eh-hem???

Is that what college is for? Getting a job?

A job is a good thing, of course, but college is about something deeper. It should teach you how to think. It should help you learn what you can't stand. It is about stretching your mind in ways you never thought you could and coming out the other side ready to fly into the unknowns of life with some level of confidence and better yet, wonder.

Every single time I witnessed this What-are-you-good-at-raise-your-hand assault on our college-bound youth, I wanted to stand up, Oz-like, and say, "Ignore the person on the stage. It's not what you are good at. It's what you love. If you are lucky enough to have both, good for you!"

Laura Munson, Writing in The Week

November 20, 2016

tell me

November 20, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Tell me who admires and loves you, And I will tell you who you are.

–Charles Aguustin Sainte-Beuve

November 17, 2016

Your Strength Zone

November 17, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Successful people know their strength zone and consistently works in it. Successful leaders know how to find the strength zone for the people they lead and help them consistently work in it. John Maxwell

November 14, 2016

articles of interest - Nov 14

November 14, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

***BIG DATA

Want to understand how Trump happened? Study quantum physics (Quantum physics as an analogy to world politics is superior to the simplistic theories dominating inter. Relations) Quartz

Companies commissioning data projects need to grasp the difference between two types of analytics projects Computer Week

Industrialized analytics are beginning to make truly life & death decisions- necessitating ethical/legal frameworks Smart Data Collective

Data science is a tool that is not necessarily going to give you answers, but probabilities New York Times

Lessons for data scientists from Trump win.. the limits of Data Science and prediction when dealing w/human behavior KD Nuggets

How Bayesian inference gives you sharper predictions from your data (esp. when data is scarce) Data Science Central

***WRITING& READING

Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing The Office of Research Integrity of the DHHS

Head Of National Book Foundation Encourages Young People To Read More NPR

10 tips to tighten your writing Gatehouse

***RESEARCH

There’s a way to spot data fakery. All journals should be using it STAT News

Discovery Versus Sequestration – Dealing with Complex Electronically Stored Information (ESI) in Research Misconduct Cases Investigations Law Blog

A court case may define the limits of anonymous scientific criticism Economist

***GENDER ISSUES

Being from a privileged background helps men, but not women, get top jobs Washington Post

Gender Gap: When Women and Men Vote Differently Bloomberg

Gender Politics: Women Actually Do Govern Differently New York Times

***RACE

Author Of 'They Can't Kill Us All' Discusses Race And Police Shootings NPR

***TECHNOLOGY

Los Angeles booms as a startup hub Economist

How I Used A/B Testing to Hack My Kids LifeHacker

***ART & DESIGN

How to make a logo, for free, in about 5 minutes Medium

Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life in Art, a Short Documentary on the Painter Narrated by Gene Hackman Open Culture

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Zuckerberg: the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election is ‘crazy’ The Verge

What we know, and what we don’t, about Facebook’s effort to reduce hoaxes The Verge

***ADVERTISING

Digital advertisers battle over online privacy Economist

Advertisers Don’t Care About Fake News Sites: Yet Medium

***INTERNET

Left unchecked, the growing maze of barriers on the internet will damage economies and hamper political freedom Economist

Google Estimates More Than 130 Trillion Web Pages Media Post

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Comfort Habits: Everyday habits can play a critical role in providing us with needed balance and continuity Becoming (my blog)

***RELIGION

Why Donald Trump Won With Women and Pro-Life Christians The Atlantic

Evangelical Left admits it doesn’t really exist Colorado Springs Gazette

The West has gained a lot from Christianity: There is still more to learn (book review) Economist

Trump Election Revealed Fractures Among Diverse Evangelical Community NPR

If the U.S. had 100 people: Charting Americans’ religious affiliations Pew Research

I was an evangelical magazine editor, but now I can’t defend my evangelical community (opinion: written by an Editor at Large for Christianity Today) Washington Post

***JOURNALISM

Impartial journalism is laudable. But false balance is dangerous The Guardian

Media’s Next Challenge: Overcoming the Threat of Fake News New York Times

Whites more likely than nonwhites to have spoken to a local journalist Pew Research

Storytelling education: Berkeley to offer “Nonfiction Narratives” minor Berkeley Beacon

Buffalo College Newspaper Headline Links Donald Trump With White Supremacist Group NBC New York

***STUDENT LIFE

Implications of Trumps Presidential Victory for international and undocumented students Inside Higher Ed

Black Freshmen at UPenn Added to a “Daily Lynching” Hate Group Slate

Yale professor: My students aren’t snowflakes, and they don’t melt (opinion) Washington Post

Millennials Reject Car-Shopping Gender Stereotypes Media Post

***HEALTH

Safety Of Painkiller Celebrex Affirmed In New Study NPR

Their brains had the telltale signs of Alzheimer’s. So why did they still have nimble minds? Stat News

'Minibrains' Could Help Drug Discovery For Zika And For Alzheimer's NPR

Trump just dropped a big hint to the pharmaceutical industry: Trump's health-care plan may help the drug and medical device industries Washington Post

***PSYCHOLOGY

How Contestants' Social Security Numbers Could Affect 'Jeopardy' Wagers NPR

***PHILOSOPHY

A Princeton philosophy professor on the ethical argument for working for the Trump administration Quartz

What Did Nietzsche Really Mean When He Wrote “God is Dead”? Open Culture

The Philosopher Who Helped Create the Information Age2192Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz isn’t a household name—but he should be Slate

Five Steps To Arguing On The Internet, According To Philosophy Junkee

***ETHICS

Ethical Implications Of Industrialized Analytics Smart Data Collective

Academic Ethics: The Legal Tangle of ‘Trigger Warnings’ Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HIGHER ED

Yes, You’re Right, Colleges Are Liberal Bubbles. Here’s the Data Chronicle of Higher Ed

Marx as Educator Chronicle of Higher Ed

***THE CAMPUS & POLITICS

Texas State University police looking into Trump 'vigilante' fliers Austin Statesman

The New Congress and Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed

AAUP Warns of Historic Threat to Academic Freedom Posed by Trump Chronicle of Higher Ed

Voters in many states weren't exactly thrilled with the notion of raising taxes to fund higher education Inside Higher Ed

***TEACHING

Why today’s college students don’t want to be teachers Washington Post

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Trump Administration May Back Away from Title IX, but Campuses Won’t Chronicle of Higher Ed

Surrogates of President-elect Trump and other Republicans say they would scale back enforcement of Title IX Inside Higher Ed

Baylor Faces Rising Calls for Transparency in Sexual-Assault Scandal Chronicle of Higher Ed

***FREE SPEECH

Student says Georgetown Law suppresses political activity; school says it supports free speech Washington Post

Free Speech in Contentious Times: Leaders of state universities hear differing views on how to uphold academic values at a time when many students feel under siege and misunderstood Inside Higher Ed

November 13, 2016

happiness

November 13, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Some pursue happiness. Others create it.

November 11, 2016

have you died?

November 11, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Some people have already died. They just haven’t bothered to set the funeral date. John Maxwell

November 10, 2016

why not?

November 10, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" – George Bernard Shaw

November 07, 2016

articles of interest - Nov 7

November 07, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

***ELECTION COVERAGE

A New Approach to Covering Election Day: Why Slate will break the traditional information embargo on Nov. 8 Slate

The New York Times to Offer Open Access To NYTimes.com November 7-9 New York Times

Nate Silver: Forecasts Showing Clinton With 99% Chance of Winning "Don't Pass Commonsense Test" ABC News’ This Week

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Meme warfare: how the power of mass replication has poisoned the US election The Guardian

Social Media's Increasing Role In The 2016 Presidential Election NPR

Social media leads some users to rethink a political issue Pew Research Center

Twitter still might save Vine by selling it Tech Crunch ***FREE SPEECH

Students at one college were threatened with arrest for handing out copies of the Constitution Business Insider

***LEGAL ISSUES

A Highway Sign Is At Center Of An Unusual Trademark Dispute NPR

Rolling Stone found liable for defamation for fraternity rape story CNN

Jury Finds 'Rolling Stone,' Reporter Liable For Damages In Rape Allegation Story NPR

'Loving' Tells Story Of Supreme Court Ruling Legalizing Interracial Marriage NPR

***BIG DATA

Data Analytics in Higher Education: A Mixed Bag Datanami

Little Data Is Making Learning Personal Wired

Sure, a lot of the legwork has been automated. But data scientists won’t be replaced by software any time soon Itproportal

Is open-source forecasting the natural next step of probabilistic thinking beyond quantitative election forecasting? Slate

Two-thirds of public doesn’t understand data, yet increasingly influenced by data: study Talking New Media

What you can learn from GitHub's top 10 open source projects Tech Republic

***ART & DESIGN

Album Turns Into Something New Each Time It’s Streamed PSFK

***FILM

Decoding the Screenplays of The Shining, Moonrise Kingdom & The Dark Knight: Watch Lessons from the Screenplay Open Culture

***RELIGION

Methodist High Court Affirms Bishop's Decision Overruling LGBT Resolution Christina Post

Amy Grant’s new Christmas album reignites the old ‘What’s Christian enough?’ question Washington Post

The most and least educated U.S. religious groups Pew Research

Evangelicals Consider Whether God Really Cares How They Vote NPR

Religious freedom at stake in this election, but not in the way evangelicals think (opinion) Religious News Service

SD Catholic church: Democratic voters are doomed to hell, Clinton is satanic Union Tribune

Steinberg: Evangelical youths weigh vexing presidential choice (opinion) Chicago Sun-Times

No, John Podesta didn’t drink bodily fluids at a secret Satanist dinner Washington Post

More than $180,000 raised for church burned, marked with ‘Vote Trump’ graffiti Religious News Service

Latino Evangelicals Are The Ultimate Swing Voters That Could Tip Florida's Scale NPR

***MUSIC

The Greatest Invention of One Thousand Years Ago Foundation for Economic Education

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

News Corp, hit by an 11% drop in print ad revenue, records a loss in its Q1 2017 earnings report Talking New Media

***JOURNALISM

When interviewing trauma victims, proceed with caution and compassion IJNet

Profiles in mobile journalism: Defining a new storytelling language IJNet

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Cuts underway as advertising tumble accelerates Columbia Journalism Review

***STUDENT MEDIA

Censored Liberty University columnist steps down from position at student newspaper Student Press Law Center

***STUDENT LIFE

Millennials: Welcome to the Voting Booth Bloomberg

Millennials Are Drinking the World’s Coffee Supply Dry Vice

College Is A 4-Year-Long Balancing Act For First-Generation Students NPR

Having a Hard Time in College? Take Some Advice From 2 Million Students TIME

Sharp Growth of STDs in College age Population Inside Higher Ed

40% of Millennials fear the election is rigged USA Today

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Behind Door #3 (The Monty Hall Problem) Becoming (my blog)

The Simple Logical Puzzle That Shows How Illogical We Are - Facts So Romantic Nautil

Why We Can’t Finish Things Chronicle of Higher Ed

***SCIENCE

The Science behind 'Doctor Strange' Bustle

Study suggests that scientific impact doesn't have to decrease with age (and scientists have a unique kind of IQ that accurately predicts their career success) Inside Higher Ed

***HEALTH

First cases of new superbug in US STAT

How Doctors Could One Day Use Your DNA to Cure You Wired

Use Canada and the WHO’s ‘essential medicines’ as guides for US drug pricing STAT

***PSYCHOLOGY

Why Big Liars Often Start Out as Small Ones New York Times

***NEUROSCIENCE

Vibrant New Brain Scans Reveal What Makes You You Wired

Fear and Your Brain Jstor

***BUSINESS

Why People Stay in Jobs They Hate Bloomberg

***PHILOSOPHY

How Nietzsche Became the Most Absurdly Bastardized Philosopher in Hollywood Slate

How a Philosophy Professor Found Love in a Hidden Library New York Times

Thing-in-Itself brings Kant’s philosophical expression to videogames Kill Screen

Philosophy is cool again (sub. req’ed) Houston Chronicle

A new philosophy of science? Surely that’s been outlawed Oxford University Press

***WRITING& READING

When Vladimir Nabokov Taught Ruth Bader Ginsburg, His Most Famous Student, To Care Deeply About Writing Open Culture

***LANGUAGE

Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators BBC

Princeton Proposal Would Require all students to Study another Language beside English Inside Higher Ed

215 Hours of Free Foreign Language Lessons on Spotify: French, Chinese, German, Russian & More Open Culture

***LITERATURE

Children's Book Author Natalie Babbitt Dies At 84 NPR

Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Letter to the High School That Burned Slaughterhouse-Five Open Culture

Father Writes a Great Letter About Censorship When Son Brings Home Permission Slip to Read Ray Bradbury’s Censored Book, Fahrenheit 451 Open Culture

Friday Reads: Madeline L’Engle Jstor

***ACADEMIC LIFE

An NYU professor who used an anonymous Twitter account to criticize the university, trigger warnings, safe spaces and the ‘academic left’ is on paid leave days after his identity was revealed Inside Higher Ed

Adjunct says he was fired after complaining to accreditor for refusing to water down his curriculum and requirements (another instructor quit rather than comply) Inside Higher Ed

***RESEARCH

Now you can see who’s not sharing their trial results STAT

How to improve the quantitative predictions in psychological studies EFPSA

What should you do if a paper you’ve cited is later retracted? Retraction Watch

***RACE

BBC Airs Tone-Deaf Segment On Black People And Fried Chicken Huffington Post

Changing Standards for Collecting Data on Race and Ethnicity Inside Higher Ed

***HIGHER ED

Ballot Measures and Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed

Fear And Anger When Trump Comes To Campus (opinion) BuzzFeed

New Era for Disability Rights in higher education Inside Higher Ed

A jolt to private colleges from the NLRB: Gagging employees violates federal labor law Student Press Law Center

***TEACHING

Do You Make Them Call You ‘Professor’? Chronicle of Higher Ed

200 MOOCs Starting in November Open Culture

***CRIME ON CAMPUS

Feds Investigating Sandusky Fine Penn State $2.4M for Violating Clery: A law requiring schools to report campus crimes and warn people if their safety is threatened US News and World Report

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Students Urge Colleges to Define Rape Culture in their Sexual Assault Policies Inside Higher Ed

November 07, 2016

a sign

November 07, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

A sign that someone is growing is that they expose themselves to people and places that are better than they are, different than they are, and more successful than they are. John Maxwell

November 07, 2016

Behind Door #3

November 07, 2016/ Stephen Goforth

Remember the old television show Let’s Make a Deal? Monty Hall would given contestants, typically dressed in outrageous costumes, a choice of three doors. The contestant would receive whatever was behind the door they selected. One of the doors had a great prize behind it. Pick that door and you get a valuable gift like a car or a vacation. But behind the other two doors were gag gifts. It might be a rooster or a lifetime supply of paper clips.

There was always one extra twist to the show: Once you pick a door, before revealing what was behind it, Monty would do you the favor of opening one of the remaining two doors and show one of the gag gifts. At that point, he'd let you switch doors if you wanted to do so. You could stick with your original choice as well.

What's the right move? Our instinct tells us to to stick to our guns. But you should go against that instinct and switch. Why? The chances you’ve picked the wrong door is two-out-of-three. But with only two doors left, your odds of getting the great prize goes up to 50-50.

But there’s more afoot here than just winning a prize on a TV game show.

Economist M. Keith Chen says this phenomenon has been overlooked in some of the most famous psychology experiments. He claims The Monty Hall Problem shows there's a logical flaw in the idea of choice rationalization. Choice rationalization is the idea that once we reject something, we tell ourselves we never liked the one we rejected anyway. Psychologists say we do this because it spares us the pain of thinking we made the wrong choice. Chen believes it’s not the act of picking that makes people suddenly prefer one over the other. He claims the preference was there all along. It's just that the preference was so slight it was not initially obvious until other possibilities are cleared out. You can read his own explanation here.

Stephen Goforth