Reflecting on the ancient philosophers and their practice

Hadot’s thesis is that the ancient Greek philosophers understood philosophy to be a love of wisdom, He placed philosophers in a state of conscious striving, between the already realized perfect wisdom of the gods and the masses of unconscious humankind, unaware or unconcerned with arête (excellence). He examined how four schools and two refinements answered the three common elements of philosophical inquiry: physics, ethics and logic. Based on fundamental assumptions, rooted in values, each discipline defined the Good Life for their practitioners. The physics described the nature of reality, cause and effect, and situated man properly within the world. The ethics described the proper treatment of one’s fellow man. The logic provided a discursive structure of context, concepts and rules for dialogue. Hadot convincingly demonstrates how the six disciplines shared two incommensurable perspectives: (1) that of philosophy-in-action, as a life lived, and (2) the philosophical discourse that critically analyzed the context, concepts and claims of the discipline’s tenets. After tracing how these two perspectives diverged in modern philosophy, Hadot argues that the ancients integrated them to understand and live the Good Life. I argue that this is as valid and important today. I adopt both perspectives to link personal reflections, Moodle discussions and my applications of these insights in my own life as an exercise of the ancient philosophers’ ask?sis (exercise) (Griffin, 2009, p.2). Reflection: The practice of applied philosophical discourse. The observation: Hadot says “ a dialogue is possible only if the interlocutors want to dialogue” (p.63). He describes the essential characteristics of a specifically philosophical discourse: neither imposes his truth on the other, but seeks rather to discover and understand himself through disinterested transcendence of personal perspective. My reflection: the spirit of the philosophical discourse requires values of mutual trust and vulnerability; integrity in representing our position; humility and restraint in order to appreciate your partner’s position; critical thinking skills that deconstruct, analyze and synthesize the essential elements of the argument, and a respect for the nature of inquiry; the maturity to separate your Self from the argument that has been offered for examination. Our discussion board: I offered a discursive opportunity on the subject of a sage who asserted that Silence is an appropriate technique when encountering critics. I proposed that this was the opposite of wisdom, arguing that it allows you to access wisdom of your own making, does not engage in open dialogue with respected others, and rejects the possibility of shared insights and mutual construction of new knowledge. I felt very disappointed that my offer to dialogue was not accepted but I publicly respected the decision. I also have observed another student’s best passionate efforts to push discourse to the forefront, often generating more heat than light, but with more success than I expected. It has become much clearer to me how important Hadot’s prescriptions for successful, responsible discourse are. It is a special form of discussion, whose nature must be explicit and intentional for both parties in order to engage fruitfully, since it approaches values and emotions that are at our very heart and soul. My applications: I am developing formal materials to improve the critical thinking and discursive skills in our college, motivated by student interest and their assessed skill level in argumentation. I’ve helped develop the argumentative essay rubric I shared with group. I discovered convincing research demonstrating how “argument mapping” improves critical thinking skills. Its educational efficacy is so demonstrably superior to traditional means that I have started a campaign to discuss making major modifications to our core curriculum. Creating a rubric is discursive; using it is the practical application, thus closing Hadot’s loop. My latest late night father-son discussions include the ingredients of discourse, particularly the respect for the Other and self knowledge through transcendence. In fact, the outline of this paper’s arguments emerged from the hot tub during one such heated discussion on the nature of Creationist “science”. My son was conflating positions on Creationist claims as science, with worth as human beings to society. Hadot helped me describe a reframing that he was able to see and accept without sacrificing his personal beliefs. I critiqued Strunk & White’s formulaic advice in our first paper, and then disinterestedly applied their formulas to my critique, which measurably improved. This paper is better after re-writing. Writing is thinking, and thinking is hard. Transcending my own initial position has been fruitful and refreshing. I am better able to improve my positions without regret for revising my statements. I expressed my frustration in the lack of discourse in Moodle with the professor, who guided me to think of ways to meet my needs in other ways. This has led me to continue to provide connections of our material to Chinese philosophical traditions (Confucius and the Legalists), insights from the Mahabharata (the epic story of Yudisthira’s principled rejection of Heaven) and the analogy of Hesse’s Glass Bead game in Magister Ludi as an example of discourse for discourse’s sake. I have been trying to improve the quality of my small group feedback, and taking on some essay critiquing outside of my small group. Brief summaries of other reflections and applications. I continue to grow in respect for the courage of my peers to push past their own boundaries. In particular, Mel is working hard on channeling her passion in new and constructive ways, reaching out to other cohorts to engage in discourse even when it’s not popular. That she can do this while double loaded with classes and in China is remarkable. Tamara continues to read deeply and express insights clearly and personally. Reviewing her comments about askesis made me think more deeply about that topic, which led me to this paper’s theme. Andy and Negar each are pressing on through the fog of finding researchable questions while pondering what can seem to be so abstract on the surface: ancient philosophy. I admire that they are asking for more and deeper critiques even when their plate is full. Hadot’s treatment of the bifocal nature of meditation was a nice way for me to reconnect and synthesize my own experience of sitting meditation which in turn can be inwardly focused on your core being, and outwardly expanding in search of reconnecting with the unity of all things. His review of the various ancient Greek traditions and how this practice fits into a larger set of exercises was elegant. The deep review of the six disciplines allowed me to reconnect their tenets with times and places in my life where I had been trying on all of their styles for fit. I have been at various times Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean, Skeptic, Cynic, with an increasing predominance of Stoic throughout my military career. I sense a return of the Epicurean on occasion, as I follow my bliss more often these days with this program and with youth soccer. I think Hadot, and this review of the principles of “principled discourse” will enable me to engage with both Fromm and Kuhn, about whom I have had well-developed positions, which I am now prepared to transcend to see what I may see. Conclusion: Hadot reconciles the opposing views of philosophy as a guide to living and philosophy as an analytical inquiry into conceptual systems by showing how the ancient philosophers respected both of these incommensurable positions while integrating them in their thoughts and deeds. What comes through most importantly for me is Socrates’ notion that the unexamined life is not worth living, integrating with the idea that critical thinking without practice are words games. Griffin, T. (2009). Ancient Philosophers, paper 2, MGM830, Colorado Tech. Hadot, P. (2002). What is Ancient Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard Univ Press.

Ken - Engaging in dialogue is definitely not easy and one’s desire to do so in a meaningful and thoughtful way is not always accepted. I imagine that there were times at the beginning of philosophy before philosophy that sophists perhaps attempted to create dialogue and they were left standing alone. However, do you think that as we continue to genuinely give of ourself, there is a requisite return of others or is it by luck that we find others who are willing to engage. In other words, does our repeated genuine attempts cause others to participate, or do we just have to get lucky that someone who is of the same dialectic bent ends up in our area of town? Mel

i think of discourse as living in a marketplace, of buyers and sellers. It is voluntary, both are seeking value for their resources. Each needs to have something to offer, each is in need of something new, and there must be an agreement for exchange under certain mutually acceptable conditions, and you know ahead of time specifically what you want. It’s a varied and diverse market of many interests, and the degree of overlap is probably somewhat less than that of a vegetable market, which has known commodities whose qualities are readily apparent. We are often in the position in the discourse marketplace of not knowing yet what we have or what we need, other than perhaps a desire to engage. We have trust that the discourse may lead us somewhere profitable and perhaps beautiful, at the risk of fatigue, lost time, diversion, frustration, vulnerability. Being human, there is a desire perhaps for comfort and affirmation in our dialogues, which may outweigh the risk/reward of true discourse, which opens us up to scrutiny and uncertainty. If we cannot separate our nascent ideas from our Self, we are constantly at risk of ego loss and reputation loss, embarassment/shame. Part of what may attract us to a particular discursive space is our experience with its inhabitants , our would be partners, its reputation, its tendency to meet all our human and inquiry needs. Probably cant force it without the kind of outside pressure that is long term harmful to the spirit of genuine inquiry and discourse. if you think of Hadot’s list of the “rules for good discourse” you will recognize a social contract that accounts for these issues: respects each other, shows a committment to transcend both individual perspectives, in order to synthesize to a new knowledge to me, Socrates’ questioning doesnt rise to the level of discourse, because he isnt risking anything: he already knows where he is going, and he never has a breakthrough in his own understanding: he always is “reading from the same script”; he is never surprised; he is always sure of himself and where he is going from the moment of the first question. He is much more god-like than philosopher-like in Hadot’s formulation of god-philosopher-common man, since he always manifests pure wisdom. the closest we ever see him in a transcendent state is when he is by himself, in deep contemplation: i argue that he never engages in discourse: he simply takes you where he has already been. Do you ever see Socrates trying on the other’s point of view, or discovering a new insight in any of his dialogues? Of course i speak of Socrates here as the character actor as conceived by Plato, the playwright, and not the man, who probably began conversations over important topics without knowing where he would end up; at least I hope he was like that. Otherwise he was born perfect, or became self-perfected without discourse. To get back to your first point then, I’d say that if you want to engage in discourse, you have to “put up your shingle” and market your product and announce what you want in exchange, and trust the network that when someone who is ready to exchange on those terms shall appear and together you will be able to sort it out. posting your paper was an act of marketting that, to me, shows your willingness to engage.

Reflections on critiquing the writing of others

Giving feedback about the paper is a way to show who you are and how much you care about the author.

Suppose, in your opinion,  the author has made a glaring error in logic or has not supported the thesis, or mischaracterized an opposing view, and because you are concerned about hurting their feelings, you don’t say anything.

How are you helping them? By letting their paper out into the world?

If you were right about the paper, and didn’t tell them, shame on you.

If you were wrong about the paper, that should emerge in the continued dialogue between professionals and now you have a chance to sharpen your own tool. You miss that chance if you don’t CRITIQUE THE PAPER, NOT THE PERSON.

If you comment on the paper without regard for the human who offered their vulnerability, their knowledge, their insights, THEMSELVES to you, try remembering to walk a mile in their shoes and ask yourself, before sending, have I been fair? have I been constructive? What is the tone of voice I used?

If you would say things anonymously about the paper in a double blind, but not to their face, that says more about you than about the paper you are critiquing.

Envision the paper as it leaves their hand and lands on a community table of knowledge for consideration. Focus on the paper on the table, not the person who offered it. The paper is not the person; restrict yourself to examining what has been offered. Don’t assume you know anything about their feelings or how they might take it. They have offered a piece of academic writing. Your duty is to evaluate it academically, while remembering there is a person on the other end, eventually.

The author has given us all a gift. Respect the gift by giving it your best critique: with support, with care, with your best work.  Respect the author for their gift and vulnerability. The critiques we offer are more important than anything we are likely to write on our own, and we will do a lot more of them than our own writing.

If you are an author, recognize the boundary between your Self and your paper. Be clear about what you are asking for when you offer it for review. If you want self-esteem more than honesty, you’ll get both, but not as you might want it.

A reflection on action research “storytelling”

What follows is a 1st person, stream of consciousness  reflection written to my mentor & committee chair.  

I describe  what it was like to record a 10 min video “telling the story” of  some preliminary findings emerging from my action research cycles into curriculum and adult learning. 

The video is hosted  at YouTube.

It will be shown at an international conference in Athens, as part of the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) annual conference, as part of a bundle of reports from the Future(s) of Education project, an international  participatory action research network.  

Dr Alana:  

i am just glad to get it out of my head  

i had a real out of body experience recording that one;  

i  am a very effective briefer in person, because i can read the audience pretty well.  

i have recorded hundreds of mini lectures etc for my business and for use here at the college on various topics.

i have never, ever needed more than a single take to record, decent and sometimes even inspired voice-overs  until  last night and that briefing.  

I literally needed about 30 takes to get thru it; most i stopped when less than a minute into it because the tone just didn’t feel right

 i think it has to do with being a fish out of water, and the difficulty i felt in trying to tune my story for an audience i couldn’t see, but more importantly didn’t have empathy for

because the audience characteristics still feel fuzzy to me, i couldn’t call up the right tone, voice, persona to apply  

 this caused me to have almost a split personality in the moment, when i am ordinarily dialed in

 i had a “talking part” and a “look ahead part” that is concerned with shaping the transition to the next point/slide  

but now i had a disconcerting 3rd part that was trying to anticipate the possible reactions of an unfamiliar, and hard to imagine audience  

this is what made me feel so out of sorts

 until i “wore out” the last, 3d part and was able to trust in just telling the story, and accepting the vulnerability of knowing that i couldn’t know the audience, i found i just couldn’t get thru it.  

this is the same phenomenon I spoke with Prof Mike Wesch, the digital anthropologist at Kansas State University, and world thought leader on social dynamics in social media: the camera eye represents the unlimited, unfathomable infinite future of all possible audiences across time and space who can be looking in on the “telling moment”.  

in a sense, its like coming face to face with the unblinking eye of God and wondering what she is thinking  

 it is trust that lets us get thru that moment, the accepting of vulnerability, that creates the empathy that hopefully fills the story, as told, with hope.  

that’s a clumsy way of trying to express my meaning of the risk and vulnerability to “telling” and why it can be such a powerful learning moment, and why we need to model it, embrace it, encourage it, and support it. 

Your “producer’s draft” was exactly what i needed to be able to get out of my own comfortable fishbowl; 

you gave me a bridge to the audience that i could not create on my own.  

this has become an interesting reflection to me already  

please put the video on the website, and any or all of this reflection as you deem suitable  

have a great time at the conference!

Reflections on myself as an adult learner

Who am I as an adult  learner:

I am framing the answer within the context of my “Big 5” (Strelecky, 2007). The “Big 5” focus my thoughts about self, purpose, mission and values.  In Strelecky’s work, the Big 5 are 5 things you want to accomplish in your life. My “Big 5” are all states of being, roles that I want to live with the highest quality (arête). My Biog 5 are:  father, husband,  teacher, student, warrior,

 

Student:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:  ENTJ  I am getting closer to the “I” as I get older which moves me from “Leader” to “Scientist” in the typology.  My scores are very high on the NT domain, which gives me a global, theoretical perspective. I notice that I am always searching for the broadest generalizations that can be made from an incident, or the widest application of an idea. It doesn’t take much for me to go off on a tangent. I am least happy when bringing a project to a conclusion, as it feels stifling and disconnected from the dynamic world around me. Finality and endings are disturbing to me, and I dislike graduation ceremonies above all else. I am much more at home in the developmental and conceptual phases of any project. I get bored easily by data gathering and have learned to offload that task to others. I am a good project manager, as I have learned to build teams of various skills and aligning tasks with strengths.

 

Kolb Learning Style Indicator:

The Kolb LSI measures self-reported preferences along 2 dimensions:  Concrete experience-Abstract conceptualization and Active experimentation-Reflective observation.  These 2 dimensions reflect how we prefer to gather our information about the world and then how we prefer to make sense of it. The intersection of these 2 dimensions establishes 4 quadrants, and can be used as a way to describe a classroom population as well as individual learners. We use this model extensively at the Command & General Staff College, and I have become convinced of its practical uses when used within reason.

In this model,  I am classified as an “Assimilator”, which combines a preference for Reflective Observation and Abstract Conceptualization. This means I don’t need to spend too long “in the moment”, fully experiencing every nuance of the moment; I am always ready to begin reflecting on its dimensions, characteristics, descriptions and classifications. As an Abstract Conceptualist, I proceed to place experiences within my larger world view, as a particular example of a class of experiences. I spend little time in active experimentation to validate the data, once satisfied that it makes theoretical sense. 

                These preferences are helpful when approaching new material where the connection to theory is strong or explicit, because it satisfies my need to be situated in the world. I am comfortable with complexity and nuance and am  competent at brainstorming and imagining future scenarios.

The downside of my preferences is that I am prone to overlook deep subtleties in experiences especially if the situation is slow moving. The idea of sitting in a duck blind for hours waiting for birds is my idea of hell on earth. I am also prone to accept theoretical justification as truth and am willing to short change practical validation of new concepts simply because of the theoretical elegance.

                As a consequence of knowing this about myself, I find it necessary to do sitting meditations to work on my mindfulness and presence in the moment, to learn to appreciate the experience simply on its own merits, without a need to explain it or frame it as part of a larger construct. On  group projects I am careful to include pragtmatists and  naysayers who will insist on evidence and results from fair trials before we adopt policy changes.

                These strengths and weaknesses, and my accommodations to the limitations of my learning preferences are an integral part of my business success as an equity trader which puts a value of new ideas, but also on backtesting and forward risk management.

 

Brainmodepower typology: AVK, global. 

I am off the chart on the audio learning, and on the globalization scale.  I have now noticed that when I am really trying to concentrate on learning I do not look at the person talking, but need to doodle in order to free my ears to hear. Doodling helps me occupy my eyes and hands (visual and kinesthetic modes). This has been a problem for others in the past when they would say “Look at me and pay attention!”  when I was doing my best to pay attention.              

2 stories from combat on this topic which reinforces the power of the insight: On a night attack, wearing night vision goggles I had high explosive rounds land near me and “whiteout” my night vision goggles, and I lost my night vision for about 15 minutes: I was able to command my company though because I could hear what was going on via the radio and I had a sense of where things were based on noise, sounds, and the volume of fire. A few days later, in the daylight, I had a hand grenade land very near to me and I didn’t have my earplugs in. I was deafened for about an  hour before my hearing returned, and it was the most frightening experience I had ever had. I felt absolutely cut off from the world and was unable to command effectively. It was terrifying, even though I could see everyone around me and could consult a map.

 

Learning techniques:

I am a fast reader and I prefer to read in burst of 10-20 minutes, rendering my notes in visual, mindmapping form.  I will generally  develop detailed cognitive maps and turn them into slides as cues for recalling detail and cognitive structure. I take semi-structured notes on standard note-taking forms that I have developed over the years to suit my style. I will often color code the notes to make structure even more apparent. When I review notes from my Masters program (15 years ago), they make perfect sense to me and I can recall the circumstances of the classroom and the moment as if no time has passed.  This form of “chunking” supports my assimilating style. 

At any given moment I may be engaged in reading up to 20 books at a time in various locations, and I follow my mood or sense of urgency for picking up the next book to read. When I find myself drifting I stop and do something else until my attention is focused, rather than trying to force concentration.

 I can concentrate for hours at a time in reading if needed, but I prefer the shorter bursts when my mind is feeling especially sticky.  Learning to crate feelings of “sticky mind” is an essential part of my practice of sitting meditation, which Buddhists call “child’s mind”.

I will rarely read a book from cover to cover, preferring to read from top down and outside in, by examining the covers, introduction and forward, table of contents, index and references and chapter summaries first, and then come back to the book after 24 hours when that has had time to digest and become embedded. I will then skim chapters based on my interests, and finally skim the whole book. I have adapted this technique from  Mortimer Adler’s “How To Read A Book” (Adler, 1940) and it has helped me integrate a lot of material from a broad array of fields.

I am not very good in free form dialogues of material, preferring to hear structured presentations that reflect deep inquiry on the part of the presenter. Lectures are excellent for me as I can listen carefully, while doodling and seeming to daydream in my own personal comfortable space.  I enjoy writing and working on a topic while having a background lecture playing, trusting that if something interesting is being said that I will tune in to it. Some of my most creative work is done in this manner in the apparent cognitive dissonance set up by 2 different information streams. I am listening to a Teaching Company presentation on Chaos by Dr Stephen Strogatz as I write this.

My biggest problem as an adult learner is procrastination and time management, since I am always eager to read one more thing before generating my final conclusions. I also find it difficult to recast my theoretical framework of information once established and will generally try to find ways to accommodate pieces of my original insight in an evolving understanding. I try to delay taking final positions in order to gather more information for this reason.

I find it amusing that despite a strong rational component, and a structured approach to learning, that my decisionmaking and sensemaking is much more intuitive than rational.  I trust my instinct far more than my conscious mind. This is a habit perhaps ingrained into me from 15 years of  being an infantryman in combat and trusting my senses in dangerous situations. This habit of mind is so odd that it is even the subject of discussion among peers who know me well and wonder how I can be so rational and yet make instinctive, intuitive decisions.

 

Teacher:

I have been teaching in the Command & General Staff College for 8 years and have reinvented my whole approach to teaching as a result of the action research inquiry while attending CTU. While I acknowledge the need for competence at the data level I also have become much more aware of the importance of the social level of learning.  I no longer think that learning and education are like filling up a pail, but are rather like lighting a fire (to paraphrase  Yeats).

                I am trying to create an educational space in the classroom, in the college, and in my professional work that encourages and supports free inquiry, a commitment to truth and academic freedom, and both a respect for and a seeking out of diverse perspectives and points of view. As a teacher in the classroom  I try to model the behavior I seek from students, by the quality of my preparation, a concern for the learning and perspectives of others, and a willingness to be vulnerable in my ongoing search for knowledge. I am encouraging as many means of formal and informal feedback as possible to help students shape their own educational programs and outcomes. I encourage and support their inquiry in my classes and through support of their independent studies. I reach out to other colleges and programs to create networks of learners and to act as a catalyst for learning.

                I respect the action research construct of multiple ways of knowing (experiential, presentational, propositional, and practical) and acknowledge the learning that can happen through 1^st person, 2d person and 3d person action research.

                I favor the connectivist learning school of thought being developed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes at University of Manitoba, as I believe it represents a realistic, sound, robust and challenging way of developing knowledge and practice to appreciate and thrive under conditions of uncertainty.  More at:  http://www.elearnspace.org/

                As part of my research I am looking carefully at how to add Voice to the environment by encouraging, supporting and promoting the diverse needs, intentions and inquiries of faculty, students and curriculum developers in a way that advocates a move away from an industrial age view of curriculum and towards one of connectivism and individuality. In this sense I have taken on an advocacy perspective that is values-based but which respects the perspectives of other members of the action research teams that make up the projects.

 

 

Father: 

My role as a father influences my role as a student. One of the important reasons for me to begin the doctoral program was to set  a personal example for my kids, who at ages 18, 15, 11 are getting to see their dad doing his homework and reading books every night as a priority.  My father set the same example for me as a kid as he went to night school to work his way up the engineering ladder from “shop rat “to full-fledged design engineer.  I’ve been trying to re-learn math and physics to be able to keep up with my son who is getting ready to go to college next year to be a physicist or an engineer, but just like in video games, I believe he has passed me for good. I am content to listen to him and get him the occasional book to feed his curiosity.

 

Husband: without my wife’s support I could not have dreamed of taking on the active role of student once more; in fact she finally told me to stop moping around and dreaming about it and just get it done. I need that boost from her to get moving at times. I want her to be proud of my work and my goals.

 

Warrior: 

I use Warrior in the eastern sense, as one who is called, by his dharma, to seek mastery of self first in order to protect the weak and promote justice and compassion in the world. This calling is well described in  Trungpa (1984). In this sense, my role as an adult learner is to focus on those things that I ought to be learning in order to improve my practice; to find worthy teachers and learn from them; to questions my own assumptions and preconceived knowledge in order to step outside what I already think I know and to follow my beliefs to their core to find the source.

Warrior learning also has a strong service component, and so the topics for inquiry, the choices for action research must satisfy the “so what” question, must be directed towards a virtuous end. For me, the choice to do action research within my college represents a way to do the right thing in support of my duty to country and soldiers whom I support. Action research’s methodology strongly supports these values, particularly when fellow inquirers are positioned as co-researchers.

 

References:

Adler, M. & Van Doren, C. (1940). How to read a book. New York: Simon & Schuster.

 

Strelecky, J. (2007). The big five for life: Leadership’s greatest secrets. New York: St Martins’ Press. 

Trungpa, C.  (1984).  Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior. Boston: Shambala Publications.

Management games for deep insight

Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) describes the use of models to help us frame questions to ask of the world, and which help us become explicit about our world views, assumptions, frames of reference, theories of cause and effect, values, and desired outcomes.

Checkland, P. (2006) Learning for action: A short definitive account of soft systems methodology and its use for practitioners, teachers and students.  Chichester, England, Oxford Press

 We’ve developed a deceptively simple Force Mgt practical exercise in the form of a card game. The complete rule set is simple; takes 5 min to scan and understand. 

Rapid rule summary:

1. Students buy forces (5 cards) from a production table (a limited deck) and in each of 5 rounds,  deploy them into 5 regions to compete for Victory Points

2. Win:  first one to 51 victory points OR most points after 5 rounds

3. Game: lasts up to 5 rounds

4. Each round has 5 hands , each hand is worth Victory Points (VP)

5. Hand 1 is worth 6 VP, hand 2 is worth 5 VP etc…

6. Player 1 buys from the red deck, player 2 from the blue deck)

7. After you buy your 5 cards, you place 1 card face down in each region (hand)

8. Once all cards are placed,  cards are flipped over and you determine results

9. If your card wins the hand you get the victory points and keep you card; if you lose the hand, you get no victory points and lose your card. If it’s a tie, you keep your card and no one gets points.

10. Each player has an identical deck to buy from.

 It turns out that the development of strategy and then fielding an appropriate force really matters, AND there are distinct choices that are meaningful, available and feasible.

If you are interested, we’d like you to review the rules, and :

• 1. Buy your first round of forces
• 2. Deploy them into the 5 regions for turn 1.
• 3. Send your “Round 1” move to long-kenneth@conus.army.mil, along with a short description of your strategy

 We are interested in examining the variety of forces and the strategy employed in round 1.  Do you, for example:

1. Buy 4 ea 10s and a Joker to kill any enemy aces and retain max budget  flexibility to see what he has remaining?

2. Buy aces early to get a lead on victory points and then protect them?

3. Buy Jacks to kill 10s while still preserving SOME budgetary flexibility?

4. How do you balance economy of force with winning victory points? (efficiency vs effectiveness)

5. Variations?

 And then tactically employing forces, do you:

1. Put aces against 6 and 5 victory point regions?

2. Put 10s against 6 and 5s to hunt aces?

3. Aim for maximum victory points each round?

4. Aim to capture 11 of the 20 available points each round? (ie bluff on 6 and 3, but try to win 5,4,2?)

 In the actual play of the game we’ll look for adaptability and learning, and how strategies change after teams have played each other a couple times etc. 

We’ve play tested it enough to know there is a rich source of insights available in the game and that it is simple to play. We’ll  play it with decks of cards in the classroom 

We prototyped the game in our Force Management elective and are satisfied that that we generate student interest and insight into broader questions of Army force management in an interesting way.

 Here are some student insights gleaned from our playtesting:

1.  Round 1 results dominate the rest of your strategic choices, so getting Round 1 is crucial.

2.  Round 1 strategies are dominated by uncertainty because you have no information about your opponent’s strategy or adaptive style yet.

3. You have to decide when you want to buy strength: early and aim for quick wins, or later after you have seen pieces of the opponents forces and strategy.

4. Forecasting your opponents moves is problematic and make this more like poker than chess or bridge.

5. Aces are like the FCS: dominating until low-cost alternatives found the weakness. It wasn’t unit Aces were developed that the 10s became meaningful, so be alert to deep flaws in complex technologies.

6. Kings are costly but dominate the field; An opponent with Kings drives you to buy Aces but make you vulnerable to 10s.

6. Jacks (J) are a low cost success strategy against 10s, but can be incrementally be defeated by other mid-weight forces.

8. The costs of transforming cards between rounds is significant but manageable and may lead to strategic advantage. Scenario: You buy Aces on the first round and are successful, opponent buys 10s to kill your aces in the second round, but you trade down to Kings which dominate, and which remain difficult to defeat in subsequent rounds.

9. Deciding where (in what regions) to selectively deploy strength

10. Tactical results can overcome strategic insights and strategic failures. Tacrtics can be game changing.

11. What if the enemy has different victory conditions? Price points? Has different rules?

12. What if new cards are introduced after the first rule set is established?

13. How much would you pay to see the opponents’ hands?

14. What if there are partial wins? Or more than 2 teams playing?

15. Simple games can be powerful learning strategies

 Conclusions: the game serves as a way to dramatize very clearly many of our force management challenges and is a useful way to create rapid, deep awareness of prime issues in this domain.

 Here are some insights from a dedicated gamer and management game modeler:

I suspect that for most people’s first play they are strongly influenced by a form of Confirmation Bias: the As are priced higher, therefore new players conduct their analysis from the assumption that As are more valuable. Depending on the goals of your concrete experience, that may be the best argument for keeping the current price structure. However, an ace of spades loses to seven cards, including four cheap ones, where a KH loses to only four cards that are both expensive and vulnerable — the KH is easily the strongest card in the deck.

I assume trade-ins are secret — in fact that for all practical purposes players are operating behind a screen during their setup phase — because knowing whether your opponent has made any trade-ins is very valuable information. You may want to specify that in the rules.

 Given the prevalence of 10s in everyone’s first turn strategies, it seems like the second-cheapest strategy is far more optimal than the cheapest — that is four tens and a jack of spades. That marginal $15 gives you a pretty good shot at a victory somewhere, and a decent chance of carrying more net capital forward.

 Here are a selection of previously submitted moves for  Round 1: (* = Joker)

Strategy 1
Region	Cards	Strategy:                  Cost:  102   Carry forward: 48
6	10h	I’m trying to kill aces while creating and deploying one, but putting it where it is unlikely to run into an ace-killer unless the other guys is trying an ace-killer strategy like mine.  I’ve got cheap on the ace I bought, which is a risk that may not be worthwhile. I’m expecting to kill an ace in either 6 or 5, win 4 outright, and lose in 3 and 2.  Expected results are thus 9.5 points to me, 10.5 points to the bad guys, I will lose approx $35 worth of cards and kill approx $70 worth.  The enemy is expected to have spent rather more than me, so I will have more cash with which to restructure in light of what I find out. Cost: 102
5	10c
4	As
3	10d
2	10s
Strategy 2
Region	Cards	Strategy:                   Cost:  150   Carry forward: 0
6	10s	10 is the ace killer on 6, then we try to overpower each successive category on the way down.  Assumes aces go to 6, which rapidly becomes a tail-chasing assumption.
5	As
4	Ks
3	Qs
2	Js
Strategy 3
Region	Cards	Strategy:                   Cost:  123   Carry forward: 27
6	Jh	Hunting the ace-killers, retaining some flexibility, winning early points
5	10h
4	Ah
3	Jc
2	*
Strategy  4
Region	Cards	Strategy:                   Cost:  150   Carry forward: 0
6	Ah	Maximum strength in every region
5	Ac
4	Qs
3	*
2	*
Strategy  5
Region	Cards	Strategy:                   Cost:  145   Carry forward: 5
6	Ah	Maximum strength in main regions, try to hunt an ace and kill 10s; accept risk in small region
5	Ac
4	10s
3	Js
2	*
Strategy  6
Region	Cards	Strategy:                   Cost:  149   Carry forward: 1
6	10s	Hunt aces and accept risk in regions 5,6, steal points with aces & J in regions 2,3,4

Traders Roundtable: Maximum Compounded Return Versus Fear of Drawdown

In a recent traders roundtable discussion on the subject of balancing maximum gain with risk management the question was posed how to reconcile these two issues. A few definitions for the purposes of this essay are in order.

First let’s consider maximum compounded return to be defined as a system that is traded at every viable opportunity at the maximum level of acceptable risk with profits that are rolled into the total portfolio and with maximum acceptable risk in leveraging the markets money. This definition allows us to stay within natural risk limits but operate the machine as close to the red line of sustainable performance as possible.

Now let’s consider the fear of drawdown to be defined as the natural human response to operating power tools or heavy equipment in a dangerous setting as close to the edge as possible with full recognition of the consequences implied of potentially catastrophic failure. The human mind is capable of creating shades of distinction between various perceived levels of risk and these degrees of perception vary by individual. Some people are fully physically capable of walking within 5 feet of the edge of the balcony where as others can go right up to the edge and peer over and still remain in full normal natural control of their reactions. For each person though there is a line beyond which you judge that you are in dangerous territory in that extraordinary measures of protection and care must be taken because of the increased risk.

I am certain that there is a lot of evolutionary biology involved inside our brains which had to face this exact challenge on every front in prehistoric times or more technically, in the era of evolutionary adaptation. Even the most primitive caveman was certainly capable of appreciating the pay off of killing a mammoth for the future of survival needs of the tribe. And yet that same caveman was fully aware of the danger to himself that he took by stocking the huge beast. Sharpened by fear and hunger in the visions of a plentiful tomorrow, each caveman had to reconcile distention in some fashion and the successful ones passed on their adaptations to countless generations. This manifests itself in modern times in any place where risk and reward are brought together and we asked humans to make a balanced trade-off decision.

In every significant situation, and by significant I mean where impactful money is being rest for an impactful reward, the brain is flooded with chemicals which trigger flight or fight responses and invoke millions of years of stored up collective unconsciousness which shape and color our decisions and effectiveness of implementing those decisions. Trading is no different.

My sense is that for long-term safety and survival and given a trading system that generates a significant number of opportunities that long-term survival should drive us towards finding the minimum level of risk with which to trade to meet our specific financial goals. For those whose goal is expressed as maximum compounded rate of return, I suggest they are more likely than not to push it past the red line and come crashing down.

Without an appreciation of the real cost and friction associated with long-term trading in multiple market conditions that require constant adaptation is too easy to extrapolate the results of a few successful trades into next taxation that is far from being achievable. These false expectations are more likely than not to add to the level of stress and further degrade performance. My sense is that minimum risk levels rather than maximum risk levels are appropriate place to begin your inquiry into long-term trading as a potential career.

Therefore, I strongly suggest that you start with ways to use part-time small position sizing trading and learn to supplement your current income at your current standard of living and proceed in small stages, and getting larger only when supported by the evidence of long-term performance. It’s an incremental approach, it does not generate lottery size winds, but it will keep you in the game while you’re learning and keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.

A Reflection on Crafting Qualitative Research Questions

In chapter 7, Creswell (2009, pp. 129-132) identifies the following general procedure and considerations for crafting qualitative research questions.

1. Ask one or two central questions followed by no more than 5 to 7 sub questions

2. relate the central question to the specific qualitative strategy of inquiry

3. begin the research questions with the words what or how to convey an open and emerging design

4. focus on a single phenomenon or concept

5. use exploratory verse that convey the language of emerging design such as Discover, seek, explore, described or report

6. use exploratory verbs that are nondirectional

7. expect the research questions to evolve

8. use open-ended questions without reference to literature or theory

9. specify the participants and the research site for the study

Background: my papers for this term are focusing on the methodology of narrative inquiry as applied to my college research setting. As part of my research I am investigating the nature of narrative inquiry and how it may be variously applied to a specific educational setting in my military college which features a strong hierarchical culture and a specific professional approach to a style of sense making through storytelling that is very powerful in our officer corps.

The specific style and use of storytelling in the military has emerged from the collective unconscious of the officer corps and can be found in our professional journals, popular magazines, lesson plans, guest speakers, lecture series and in the classroom as we describe our personal experiences in combat and try to relate them to our doctrine which serves as the basis of our professional theory of action.

Because of the power of storytelling, I want to look at other modes of narrative inquiry to see what the theory or thoeries of narrative inquiry say about choices organizations may make when using storytelling in the conduct of their daily craft. Therefore, I intend to examine the application of narrative inquiry in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods of research. I hope to develop an appreciation for a meta-theory of narrative inquiry and a practical model to help researchers determine an appropriate use of narrative inquiry in their own research.

The basis for this interest is my literature review in narrative inquiry which uncovered at least 20 different ways in which narrative inquiry is broadly used in the field, each with with its own distinct flavor, perspective, timeframe, point of view, purpose and methodological techniques. I want to examine where on this emerging methodological map the Army’s particular style of storytelling fits and to see what other insights and applications may be gained by looking at other implementations of narrative inquiry.

Since the next paper in this series is the qualitative sketch, this week’s posting focuses on qualitative research questions. Bearing in mind Creswell’s procedural advice, here are my qualitative questions concerning narrative inquiry applied to qualitative research.

1. Central question: how does storytelling affect the educational environment in our college?

(I use the term storytelling rather than narrative inquiry to keep the central research question jargon free and theory neutral. I will ask this question in a non-formal way and you storytelling as an open ended construct to give the interviewee maximum freedom to perceive in their sense making and personal storytelling).

2. 5 to 7 sub questions:

a. How does storytelling affect you personally as a teller or a listener?

b. Describe any personal experience with storytelling that made a difference to you or to others?

c. Describe how you see or hear others using stories in the college environment.

d. What effect do you see or hear stories having on our professional literature in journals, magazines or doctrine?

e. How have stories affected the classroom experience of students, faculty or senior leaders?

f. How significant are stories in the overall educational experience of our college and profession?

g. How do you see or hear stories being told? In what style and in what medium?

h. What are the strengths and weaknesses of storytelling as a means of making sense of our profession?

(I’ve tried to keep the sub questions centered on storytelling as a phenomenon and am asking the interviewee to describe its effects, its processes, its locations and its context. With the last couple questions I have asked for them to conduct some analysis and judgment to make meaning about this mode of sense making. I would expect that with these base questions a rich conversation about the culture of storytelling will emerge from individual interviewees)

3. Because the questions asked for open and the descriptions I believe they allow the emergent quality of the research to develop.

4. I am focusing on a single concept of storytelling as a phenomenon.

5. I am using exploratory verbs .

6. I am using non-directional questions to let the interviewee make value and directional judgments.

7. In the multiple cycles of participatory action research I have conducted to date, I have seen firsthand how the research questions morph and evolve over time. Cresswell is exactly right.

8. I have minimized the connection to theory except possibly in the sub question H, where I’ve introduced the words ”making sense”, which are related to the technical term of art “sense making”. This might be pushing the idea that storytelling is a sense making process but since this is the last question and the theory is not unusual, I feel justified in asking it.

9. The context of these research questions are the U.S. Army command and Gen. staff College at Fort Leavenworth Kansas, and members of the students, faculty, curriculum developers, administration and senior leadership along with interested parties in military education across the Army.

References:

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (Third Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

Testing the Word 2007 Blog publishing template

This is to see how things come through when written in Word 2007 and pushed to the blog site.

Here is a sample picture:

 

Am wondering how tags and categories are handled?

Traders roundtable discussion: the issue of optimization in research

We were having a traders’ roundtable discussion on the topic of researching potential trading systems and the issue of optimization came up. This is a very important topic for traders who want to apply a systematic approach to trading markets. Here are some of the highlights of that discussion for you to consider as you prepare your trading strategies.

Typically when we think of optimization for a trading system we are looking at a process that incorporates multiple variables, parameters with different settings possible and perhaps a number of market filters or conditions which taken together with an exit strategy give us a multitude of ways to trade a particular concept or idea.

It normally begins with an idea the trader has based on insights fromtheory or from reflective practice where he believes the system gives a persistent advantage compared to the average market return  of simply buying and holding. It is also possible however that the edge may come from a brute force data mining operation that finds a statistical edge in some combination of market conditions. In other words, the insight comes from the result of massive computations and not from an intuitive or academic insight.

In either case , what we have is a system of multiple components, each of which can vary, and on an initial pass through with middle-of-the-road parameter settings we find a persistent edge in multiple markets with a statistical significance. Human nature being what it is, we would want to start testing different parameter settings for each component in order to determine the best mix for the most robust return and to find which of the parameters seem to have the most power when it comes to influencing the results. In statistics, this general approach is called factor analysis or principal component analysis.

In theory, you would want to find the absolute maximum return by finding the absolute optimum setting for each of the possible parameters and then take that into the market to begin trading. Taken to an extreme, this can produce a phenomenon of curve fitting or over optimization. What you can end up with is a system that would be perfect for the unique set of data conditions of the test. The problem of course is that the future may not ever show you that same data set again in your over optimize system will under perform much to your surprise.

The usual response to this phenomenon is to conduct testing with out of sample data. In other words designing the system on one data set and refining it to a certain degree and then testing it on a completely new set of market data to see if the edge persists. If you were systems development practice find you always discarding your systems after the out of sample test, it probably occurs as a result of over optimization.

In practice then, we want to find the trade-off between robustness of performance in multiple market conditions with out of sample testing that yields a persistent advantage in multiple market conditions but without trying to overturn the system for ideal conditions.

A way to keep this systematic approach in tune is to continue to monitor performance in a feed-forward approach that examines actual trading results to see how the performance results compare to the test and confirmation performance curves.

The bottom line: the more you rely on automatic trading systems, the more important your research and validation process becomes since you will not be using inexperienced traders override protocol to keep you from going off the deep end.

Developing emotional intelligence: a challenge for 21st-century education

In many organizations with a strong hierarchical culture, we place a premium on the deep insights and reflective learning of our most senior leaders. In these organizations it makes a lot of sense in conventional times to value their insights above all others.

It would be normal in this kind of organization when faced with a challenge or problem, for the leader to think deeply and reflect upon his experience and come up with a design for a strategy that will lead the organization to success.

This kind of leader would typically assemble his staff and asked them specific questions for information he believed he would need in order to made the best decision possible. His staff would normally then go out to find the answers to these few questions and report back quickly with the required information.

Receiving the required information, the leader would then integrate these into his plan and produce the final solution and the organization would proceed into the execution phase of operations.

Under conditions of uncertainty however, the strategy for information gathering is not sufficient area when the world is so dynamic that the long and colorful history of the leader no longer applies to the uncertain future, then his deep insights actually are harmful to the cause.

Senior leaders in conditions of uncertainty must therefore actively encourage their staff to provide their deep insights which are developed from a close working relationship with the world. This later must set aside his seniority and generate the conditions whereby a team-based approach to learning and problem solving can be applied.

The more entrenched the hierarchy has been in the culture, the harder it will be for the leader to create those conditions. He must set aside his high rank and become emotionally vulnerable by revealing the limits of his knowledge and encouraging his subordinates to speak out especially when their ideas are different than his.

This form of emotional intelligence is not a natural condition for senior leaders to have developed in a hierarchical culture and makes the need for leader education in the new way all the more important as we look forward to an increasingly uncertain and dynamic future.