How to Remember Where You Put Things

I started this blog partially as a way to help me remember* ideas and connections and interesting things.

I stopped by Doc Searles who had two provocative things:

1. On the value of high grades and SAT scores (NOT! "Right now you're reading a former student who didn't achieve more than a C average until his third year in college, and whose SAT scores were a lot lower than yours") and learning by failure
2. A new word for a new phenomenon: what you actually search for on Google to find the exact post you want (i.e., the Google shortcut), which got me to

"This morning I woke up with the word "googlenym" on my lips...

There, Mark Federman commented, "Interestingly, the "google url" is a retrieval of the famous Simonides story, of remembering by place and proximity (from which we ultimately derive topics, taxonomies and other such artefacts.)"

Now, over at Joanne Jacobs' there's been discussion of extended testing-time for dyslexic future lawyers and physicians. (Some of the commenters are ignorant rude jerks, for which we don't blame Joanne). Number 2 Pencil doesn't quite understand accomodations either**).

One of the interesting thing about how Al's dyslexic brain works, is where the Simonidean retrieval is brilliant and where it breaks down. She always knows, so to speak, which tool drawer to open, and indeed which tool to use....just takes some time for her to put her hand on the absolutely correct tool.

*One clue: If I find something interesting but don't have time to deal with it, I e-mail myself the URL and a brief note.

**The total and complete ethical bankruptcy of parents who seek "accomodations" for their neurotypical children, and the spinelessness of the other parents whose children do need accomdations but have been taught victimhood and how to whine.

Comments

[Stormwind]

I chuckled at you emailing URL's to self with a brief note. I do the same thing. For blog posts I sometimes use Bloglines to email a clip of the post, the url, plus my notes to return to later.

I read the post and comments at Joan Jacob's site (also the other links you provided)- finding a huge number of interesting misconceptions.

Perhaps it is only well known within some circles that SAT's and GRE's do not predict who will do well with higher education. They do give an indication for a very small percentage (16% is the figure given by a 2001 textbook on psychometric tests), a fact which ETS doesn't stress, but does tell administrators. In addition, they don't tell anything about motivation- which is the real key to success in not only higher ed, but also life (in my opinion). I don't understand why so many schools continue to use those scores as the primary way to determine admission (By the way, I didn't have to have to take the GRE for my grad school admission. An enlightened group, this particular university college doesn't use GRE scores- precisely because of the low predictive validity.).

I don't have a problem with allowing additional time or any of the other various accommodations that might be needed for that sort of test taking, for students with disabilities (not surprising for a future rehabilitation counselor with a lot of special ed classes under her belt- eh?). I think the misconceptions are alarming though, and it appears a great deal of advocacy is needed in the form of educating the general public about what accommodation really means.

And that sounds like a potential future blog post and/or essay for one of my classes. Coming full circle- yours is one of the posts via Bloglines, I have mailed to myself. ;-)

[Nancy Fisher]

I can't find my charm braclet because I can't remember where I put it. Can you help me?

[JW Henry]

I can't find my GBA SP. Can you help me?