So there’s this experiment where researchers take a bunch of preschoolers and give them a marshmallow and they say, “ok, you can eat this now, or you can wait thirty minutes and then we’ll give you two marshmallows.”
And they leave them alone with hidden cameras and watch the struggle of willpower and it’s supposed to say something about delayed gratification.
And this thing gets used to explain why some people are better with money than others, or make various other better life choices. The Aesop here is if you can delay your satisfaction, you’ll get ahead.
But here’s a proposed version of that experiment that’s more realistic.
Give the kid the marshmallow and explain it all as above. Then come back 30 minutes later and say, “Sorry, actually we ran out of marshmallows, so even though you didn’t eat yours, you’re not getting a second one. Other kids got two, but you don’t. Also, every kid with fewer than two marshmallows has to give back their original marshmallow. Sorry we didn’t tell you that earlier now hand it over.”
Then call them back for a repeat experiment where you give them the same offer. See how many kids scarf that marshmallow down in two seconds flat because like hell they’ll trust you again.
If it’s the experiment I’m thinking of they did run the experiment again, and this time did take into account something they didn’t before: the socio-economic level of the children involved and if there had been broken promises made before to them. Children from lower socio-economic circumstances who had been let down in the past were far more likely to eat the marshmallow the first time around. The experimenters then showed the kids they had the two marshmallows to give them and let them out.
Then comes the fun part: they ran the experiment again.
This time, those kids who ate the marshmallow before waited. Without any further prompting than keeping their word, the scientists destroyed the notion that children in poverty are more prone to poor impulse control or are more likely to scarf down sugar than rich kids.
Oh now that is interesting! I’d never heard that follow-up before.
When I first learned about this case study in college, something about it felt incomplete, but I could never really put my finger on it. It seemed overly simplistic, but I couldn’t see the missing piece because in was in one of my cognitive blind spots.
Knowing about this follow up is incredibly valuable and insightful!
And this is why it’s vital for human beings to check our assumptions and always be on the lookout for cognitive blind spots. Because even one missing variable can mean the difference between transformative insight and generations of deeply embedded misconceptions.
This is also why it’s important for the scientific community to actively seek out scientists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. It’s not about arbitrary “diversity quotas,” it’s about pursuing a diversity of insight.
:^)
Source?
I have a source, and not only does it key on the idea of the kids being more able to wait if they know the adults will be likely to keep their promises, but it also compares the waiting times of kids from Germany to kids from Cameroon, and found that the Cameroonian kids (unlike the German kids) almost all had absolutely no problems with the test, because they were raised in a completely differently way–a way that was based on their parents anticipating the children’s needs, so the kids already knew they adults would keep their promises and so the kids had no need to be upset (the report states that “being upset” is strongly discouraged in their culture) https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/07/03/534743719/want-to-teach-your-kids-self-control-ask-a-cameroonian-farmer SO YES no matter how you look at it, it’s really a test of the children’s parents, not the children.
Fifteen years later and I just this minute learned that ‘draught’, as in Draught of Living Death, Sleeping Draught, etc. is, in fact, pronounced “draft”.
Then there’s this guy:
In our defense:
caught – cawt
taught – tawt
daughter – dawter
distraught – distrawt
draught – draft
???
laugh – laff laughter – lafter
tough – tuff
cough – coff
There is plenty of precedent for gh representing an f sound if you were paying attention.
tHeRE is plENTy of PREcEDEnt if yOu weRe PAYing aTTEntIOn
Get over yourself.
“If you were paying attention” you would know that English has been dissected for centuries and determined to be one of the hardest phonological languages in modern existence due to the fact that it’s a hodgepodge of other languages resulting in various letters/digraphs being associated with various sounds.
(See, I can be just as pretentious.)
In fact, “if you were paying attention” then you would know about The Chaos, a famous (and infamous) poem written by Charivarius.
Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation — think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough — Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!*
—
So there’s no sense in acting pretentious because you could recognize a single digraph. This language is a complete clusterfoque where the standard rules don’t apply.
Ouuuu
Bringing it back to the point, draught is pronounced like draft, not drought, and I hate English.
There’s also the thing where if you learn words first by reading them, you tend to pronounce them the way they logically would be pronounced, by following the most common pronunciation rule for that set of letters, ie, Draught being mispronounced as drawt, not draft. Because there IS a word for DRAFT, and we use it in racing. And military service in war time. So why would a BEVERAGE be pronounced the same way?
So you teach yourself what must be correct because NO ONE uses the word “draught” out loud any more.
Don’t be such a snot. Surely the smarter people learned it from books since we NO LONGER SAY THAT WORD OUT LOUD.
Um, English, are you okay?
I HATE THAT POEM but I also love and fuck language
How many non-native English speakers cried reading this poem?
but Draught beer is a legit thing you can go into a bar and say i’ll have whatever you have on draught
draught horses are a thing – WE DO STILL SAY THAT WORD OUT LOUD
Pretty sure in American English at least both of those are commonly written as draft – draft beer and draft horses. A quick google search does seem to indicate that they did both come from draught… but I had never associated either of those things with the spelling “draught” as opposed to “draft”. I like to think I’m reasonably well educated and intelligent, so probably there’s a reasonable percentage of these people confused because they also had associated that pronunciation only with the spelling “draft” and not “draught”. And there’s likely a difference in British usage as opposed to American, Canadian or Australian usage.
In the US we do call it “draft” beer and “draft” horses. Also the closest word by spelling to draught is drought. Which is pronounced “drowt”. It’s the most logical conclusion to come to that “draught” is pronounced like an awkward drought.
I learned the drought/draft thing when I was about fifteen and it broke my brain, but I was in my twenties when I first read that poem up there and learned that “vittles” was spelled “victuals” and quite honestly I’ve never recovered from that one.
IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.
You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.
My flat-mate’s date for the night was almost as drunk as her. She had passed out in her room and locked the door. He refused to leave because he wanted to have sex. He also demanded food because he was dealing with “whiskey dick”. He didn’t like the lack of food in the fridge. I called 911, did the stuff stated above, and he was getting PISSED about how long the “order” was taking. He took my phone, demanded they “hurry the fuck up”. Police arrived two minutes later, arrested him, and helped me file a police report. Pressing charges wasn’t necessary because he had warrants on him from THREE different states for the very thing he planned to do to me. Several months after this happened one of the officers informed me he was charged with two felonies because he crossed stay lines, and will be serving no less than 35 years in prison. The officer ripped into my flat-mate about her bringing home complete strangers, while drunk, knowing full well this shit could happen.
This was 14 years ago.
Do the pizza order, do it as calmly as you can. The dispatcher I spoke to said things like this:
“If he’s drunk say you want mushrooms.” I said I want extra mushrooms.
“If he’s threatening you with sexual assault say you want onions.” I said I want onions.
She went like this with different toppings and sauces for a description of him, like pineapple if he’s blonde, black olives if he’s tall, extra large if he’s tall, etc.
They’ve heard this sort of coded call before. They’re trained for it. They will understand what you’re saying. Order the pizza.
Really though. I’m in training for dispatch and this was one of the first things they taught us. Pretend you’re talking to a friend or relative, pretend you’re ordering pizza, we’ll figure it out. We’ll word questions so you can answer in an easy, casual way. Please, just make the call and we will do everything we can to help you.
I was speaking to someone the other day about the subject of students who sport unusual haircuts. This person said that it is wrong for parents to cut their children’s hair in such a way that will attract negative attention from other students, especially if the child is so young. Ultimately, the goal should be for them to “blend in”.
Now, on the surface, this probably seems like reasonable position. Especially the first part of the statement. A five year old child cannot comprehend the social consequences of wearing a mohawk to school. And perhaps when they are older, they will regret having done so.
But after I spent some time thinking about this, I realized that this mentality is not the solution at all. It is actually part of the problem. Now, I want to make it clear that the person who made this statement is a nice person, a good person. And it is not my intention to condemn them or their value system.
But kids should not have to blend in, folks. They do not owe the world that.
There are certainly negative things a child can do to attract negative attention in a classroom environment: engaging in undesirable behaviors such as hitting, kicking, spitting eloping, rending of garments etc. Those are modifiable behaviors and we should definitely seek to modify them. But we are not modifying them so that the child can blend in. We are modifying them to improve the child’s quality of life and the quality of their education. We want to empower them to engage in satisfying social interactions, raise their self esteem and foster a growth mindset.
Growing up, I did not blend in…for a variety of reasons too numerous to expound upon in this post. I was not actively seeking to be different. But during my early years, the message from adults was clear…blend in. And being a child, and functioning within the scope of my own developmental age, I interpreted that as “don’t be you”. As a result, I spent a lot of years trying not to be me.
Well into my thirties, I was certain that the very problem with me was THAT I was me. I thought if I could just be someone else, that would fix everything. Then I could blend in. Then I would finally be happy. And yet, the harder I tried to be like other people the more miserable I became.
It took me many years to realize that happiness comes not from our ability to blend in with others, but from our ability to accept and celebrate what we are.
Children might be instinctively wary, even frightened, of peers who are different. But ultimately, their reaction to those peers is almost always a learned behavior. The burden does not fall upon children to blend in, in order to avoid attracting negative attention from their peers. The burden falls upon us as a society to model tolerance and empathy for our children, so that they can accept and celebrate themselves and one another.
When I was a child, from the time I was about four and could understand things, my mom told me and my brother that we should have a secret word. That way, if we were ever in trouble or felt unsafe and we didn’t want the people around us to know we needed her to come get us, we could let her know. So she let us pick the word and my brother and I chose the phrase “peanut butter cups.” (I’m happy to share the phrase now since both my brother and I are adults now).
I used the phrase twice in my life. Once, I was at a friends house when I eight years old. Her dad got really drunk and was throwing things against the wall. I was really scared and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the phone when I called my mom to come get me because I didn’t know if he would get more violent if I asked her to come get me. So I called her and was calm and after a couple minutes I asked “Hey mommy, did you get me those peanut butter cups from the store?” And she said “I’ll be right there.” And she came and got me within minutes.
Second, I was a teenager spending the night at a friends house. Her brother and dad were drinking and they started talking about things that made me uncomfortable – ie: what they liked to do to women. My friend didn’t seem perturbed and said that was normal for them and that I shouldn’t worry. But I was worried because they were really drunk and I was 15 and the only ‘woman’ around that wasn’t related to them. I went in my friends room, told her I needed to call my mom and say goodnight. Before I hung up with her I asked “Next time we go to the store, can we get some peanut butters cups? I’ve been craving them.” And she came and got me, just like that.
Two incidents, one as a young child, one years later as a teen. Don’t discredit this stuff, it fucking works. My brother used it a few times too. Let your child pick the word and no never, ever, ever, ever get mad at them for using it no matter what it is.
DO NOT SCROLL PAST THAT.
please ALWAYS reblog, these are so good and clever
teachers when adhd students exhibit symptoms of adhd because they have adhd
If the kid isn’t diagnosed sometimes it can be helpful . They can’t make accommodation to kids with disabilities if they don’t have an IEP/504.
So if they want to help the kids and there’s nothing in the system that’s how it starts. Documenting calling home. Then working with school admin. Not all teachers believe in meds and they can find ways around a lot of things. But they can’t give more time on an assignment, or do certain disability accommodations if there’s no legal anything.
We seem to be having more adhd/more support requiring people with autism coming into the younger years in high school and I…I feel terrible that these teachers cannot control their own classrooms and can most definitely not help these kids. These children have had jack shit support in both the home and schooling system, so they’re labelled as troublemakers who get sent out of class the minute they start showing symptoms and I. Hate. It. I’m just a student myself, but as someone who is mentally ill, as someone who’s listened to my friends recount struggles with schooling alongside their neurodivergency, I feel way more qualified to help these students than the teachers are. The only thing thats stopping me is I don’t want to undermine the teachers, and I have so much work to do myself. I’m not sure how to have this conversation with my teachers, how to ask them to work closer with the students rather than sending them off to the library, but someone needs to.
teachers when adhd students exhibit symptoms of adhd because they have adhd
If the kid isn’t diagnosed sometimes it can be helpful . They can’t make accommodation to kids with disabilities if they don’t have an IEP/504.
So if they want to help the kids and there’s nothing in the system that’s how it starts. Documenting calling home. Then working with school admin. Not all teachers believe in meds and they can find ways around a lot of things. But they can’t give more time on an assignment, or do certain disability accommodations if there’s no legal anything.
べんきょうしなければならない 