The Swiss-Army person (2/6/2019)

I often explain in my classes that biologists would make the great economists. Or, maybe better that economy and biology are very closely related fields. On the first hand, you may think that I am crazy, but I'll try to make an argument for it today. 

I do not strictly believe that we all belong in our silos, but that our professions and specializations can benefit a lot from cross fertilization and interaction. In my sermon, I argued that biology, or my observations of nature, reveal order, mathematics and rhythm. Nature or biology really has so much more to offer or to teach us.

Nature offers something to the artists; just think of the greats like the photographer Ansel Adams, writers like Thoreau, painters likes Monet, and I am just scratching the surface. It offers sanity to the forest bathers, the meditators, those folks who retreat to nature. They all offer nature something in return. Without the interaction there would be no preservation of the natural world. 

About once a month do I see that picture on Facebook that offers you $3,000,000 or some crazy price to go live somewhere in nature without a phone and internet for 3 months or some period. I wish it was a true offer, I would jump at it, and disappear for 3 months, a half year.

But back to what I want to write about today. In my classes I talk about parsimony and how parsimonious nature is. Let’s look at the word parsimonious. It has become one of my favorite words and it means: “the quality of being careful in spending.” You may also call it stingy, miserly, cheap, frugal, tight, or penny-pinching. You get the idea. Not that I live that way, but nature does not waste a thing (unlike most of us humans). If you don’t live as efficiently in nature as possible something or somebody will outsmart you, out-compete you, hunt you down and have you for dinner. It is a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t do it all as efficient as possible you are literally toast!

Nature is very supply and demand oriented as part of this parsimony. If you can do the same thing as your neighbor and use less of the resources available to you, you can literally do more with what is available and out-compete those guys. It is survival of the fittest, of the most efficient, or the strongest. This is the most classic Darwinian concept, but also classic economic model you can find: Supply and Demand.

Then there was the German scientist/chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873). Von Liebig also known as the father of the chemical fertilizer developed the “Law of the Minimum.” He figured out that plants (and in his case crops) always had one limiting factor. Once you alleviate that limiting factor, say through fertilization, something else will become limiting (another element or chemical in the soil or something else like water or light). By the way, von Liebig also invented the bouillon block that we use in soup. He was supposed to be a great chemist, philosopher and teacher.

It was around that time that biology really took off, we had Darwin who really figured out this thing called evolution; then we had Mendel who figured out genetics. It must have been an exciting time to live and learn. But both Darwin and Mendel illustrated that there are other forces in play than just biology, or maybe that biology involves economics, mathematics and statistics, just to name a few. Von Liebig had showed it involved chemistry. 

I always tell folks that I probably came the closest to a religious experience when I studied cell biology and learned what all goes on at the cellular level, or maybe what can go wrong on a cellular level. To think we have all these people and other living organisms running around on this earth, was a religious experience to me. It was absolutely amazing and kind of scary. But then I learned we have suicide organelles (or capsules) in our cells and if there is anything wrong, the cells can commit suicide (an interesting concept in itself). This works most of the time, but if not, we grow older and those cells may mutate and could develop cancer. It is all amazingly complicated and it all works; most of the time. But no, I never became overly religious, but I did gain a heck of a lot of respect and love for biology and I retained my spirituality.

Your's truly sitting behind his desk at home, trying to do some work.  It's a little cramped and I desperately need to clean it up ... maybe this weekend. (photo courtesy of my wife)

As you can see, biology can involve a lot of disciplines, ranging from spirituality to mathematics, to economics to actually life science. I do think multidisciplinary thinking is extremely important. We lose sight of the big picture by being overly specialized. While writing this post I was going through my old posts knowing that I wrote about using past experiences in development of my classes. It was amazing when I reread some of my posts. There are a lot of reoccurring themes here, and I have always wondered if I label too much. However, this shows my multidisciplinary interests, my scattered brain and my love for knowledge (or the unknown). For example, I am currently studying about the construction of embankments and how to compact soil. This is something fairly new to me, I have learned a little bit about it when thinking about the rooting of plants, but never really about building dams. It is fun, and it will be something new to think about and to teach. Life is never boring this way, and all I can say is: go out there yourself, put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to learn something new, something you had absolutely no idea about; become a multidisciplinary persons, we need more of them.  It does not have to be biology, that is just me, just do not stop learning and experiencing.

I am a trainer: The classes that I teach (11/13/2017)

If you are a regular visitor, by now you should know that I give day long workshops throughout the state of Virginia.  I do it for a living and in general I do on to two day-long workshops each week.  I will detail the workshops below, but first a brief explanation.

An updated photograph from 2019 during teleworking times.  I somehow lost the original pic.

We have a mandatory certification program for people working in Erosion and Sediment Control and in Stormwater Management.  In the distant past I used to be in charge of that program, and taught the certification classes.  However, the program was moved from one government department to another, and guess what?  I lost my job as manager of the program.  This is what usually happens with mergers, so it did not come as a surprise.  What surprised me was that they kept me, I was actually afraid of being laid-off or moved to a different job.  However, my current supervisor understood my love of course development, teaching, public speaking, and my life experience.  So, I am still allowed to do what I love to do these things: but especially teach.

Actually, one of the things I was asked to do was to step away from teaching the regular classes and to develop a number of classes that go deeper into the various subjects discussed in our certification classes.  We call these classes our Continuing Education classes; although the other day I called them the Special Ed. classes.  In my classes I stay away from my political opinion (although my regular readers now I have one), I am somewhat of a lecturer, but try to be Socratic at times.  So what classes did I develop and teach?

Integration of Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Program – This was the first course I developed.  It dealt with the transition from one department to another and the adoption of the then new stormwater management regulations.  I talked about how the two laws and regulations interacted and complemented each other.  Many of the Erosion and Sediment Control professionals were all the sudden faced with having to deal with enforcing the new Stormwater regulations and having to deal with a new State agency.  This was a very intense 6-hour class; it also introduced a lot of controversial new regulatory issues.

Plan Review Using the Older Standards – Since the adoption of the new Stormwater Management Regulations there were a group of older (grandfathered) stormwater structures that needed to be reviewed by folks who had never reviewed them before.  We teach the review of the new Low Impact Development (LID) Best Management Structures (BMPs) in our regular classes, so this class was for the review of some of the older more traditional ones.  This was another intense 6-hour class.

Erosion and Sediment Control Inspector Refresher Class – Everyone needs a refresher class so now and then; to go back and to hear it all again.  I end this class with a Bingo game.  This is a fun filled, very interactive 5.5-hour class.

Native Plants for Stormwater and Erosion and Sediment Control – Being a Plant Ecologist by training, this class was my first real hobby class.  I love doing this class and people seem to enjoy it as well.  I will be redesigning it this winter a bit, and will de-emphasize the law and regulations a bit and add more discussion about the various plants (that is what I also one of the comments in the evaluations of the class I received).  One or two people have an issue with me bringing up evolution and natural selection in this class.  So be it.  This is a very intense 6-hour class.

Applied Soils for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is another one of my favorite courses.  I developed this with a dear friend of mine.  We taught it together until he left the department; and now I am on my own.  In this class I deal with soils in three ways.  I look at it from the agriculture (USDA) side, the hydrology side and the engineering (Unified Soil Classification) side.  Then I try to tie it in to our job in construction as it relates to erosion and stormwater management.  This is a great 5-hour class.

Wetlands for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is not a class intended to turn people into wetland delineators.  While I worked as a delineator for over 15 years, that is not the intent of this class.  What I do in this class is teach inspectors and plan reviewers to recognize “red flags” and know what to do when they see them.  I also want them to know how to react to sediment releases in wetlands.  This past week I taught the last of this class in its current format.  I will be redesigning it and taking a lot of the discussion on law and regulations out of it and putting it on-line.  For the rest, I again want to make it more hands-on and show pictures of plant species (invasive and typical wetland species) to get people more in to it.  This is a 6 to 6.5-hour class.

 SWPPP Inspections – This is the most interactive class of the bunch, with a class exercise.  We discuss the development of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, the different elements and the inspection of a site for compliance with the SWPPP and the Pollution Prevention Plan (P2).  This is a great 5-hour class.

Where the water goes – A class subtitled “Hydrology for Inspectors.”  A class that deals with the flow of water on a construction site.  How water behaves itself on slopes, why it matters and what we do to mitigate for its effect.  We discuss how we manage the flow of water on a site and examine a lot of “how-not-to” photographs.  I love this 6-hour course.

Soil Amendments for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is a 3-hour course divided into two parts.  The first part deals with the use of compost and fertilizers in the restoration after construction has been completed.  In the second part we discuss the use of special soil mixes for bio-retention areas.

Photography for Inspectors – This is also a 3-hour course that I usually do in combination with the previous course.  As readers of my blog may know, I am somewhat of a photographer and I have been trained in it.  I teach the do’s and don’ts for inspectors as well as some of the photographic theory. 

Finally, I am in the process of developing some more classes (no rest for the weary).  But it keeps my brain going, it keeps me young.  I often joke, that I roll out of my motel bed in the morning and look on my sign-in sheet what class I am teaching that day; for sure, never a boring day.

In addition to all these classes, I also do some workshops on request here and there that are hybrids between these classes.  As I tell my students, if you have ideas for classes let me know.

   

I will also entertain special requests to teach any of these classes or any workshop where ever you are.

Why are you here? ... On Training and Teaching (Part IIX) (7/14/2017)

I finished with the development of a new class about six weeks ago, before I went on vacation.  So it had been sitting on the shelf for that long before I finally was able to pull it off and teach it this week.  Boy, lesson learned; although I did review it a few times in the past week, it still felt foreign at certain points.  It definitively had its rough edges.  The reviews were kind, but I am my harshest critic, I can do better.  I asked them shred me, to be brutally honest, but they were too nice.

Fascinating isn’t it, we live in a strange society where if you want critique and ask for it you can barely get it.  Really, I thought it was not that polished and flowing well.  On the other hand we have a person at the helm of this country who will try to squash you like a bug if you give him the slightest little bit of critique.  You’ll be at the mercy of what his little fingers can type out in his twitter account.  It is such a strange world out there.  I am not that way; I really would like to learn from my mistakes and screw ups; although I am far from perfect (although I may come over as too arrogant in one or two of my posts).

This week I received a survey from the National Science Foundation that was sent to people with Ph.D.’s (I wonder under what rock they found me).  One of the questions was interesting.  It asked me what was important in my job (I am paraphrasing here); was it:

• Money
• Benefits
• Freedom
• Research
• Teaching
• Perceived contribution to society

I needed to say yes or no.  Well, the state does not pay much of anything, so that wasn’t it, I do not do research, so we can scratch that one as well.  So I choose the remaining ones.  But after I had to rank them, and there came the rub, to me it still is my perceived contribution to society.

A few weeks ago I was part of a meeting/survey that was conducted by the Virginia Institute for Marine Science on their service to local communities.  People that were asked to attend were all (volunteer) members of local boards that deal with wetlands and coastal issues.  The first question there was: “Why do you volunteer.”  My simple answer was: “To give back to the community that is willing to put up with me.”

There you have it.  It reminds of those cliffs full of gannets, murres or puffins that we saw in Newfoundland, and the story of the people from (coastal) communities in Newfoundland that pulled sailors from ships that hit those rocks and took care of them.  In my previous post I spoke about two of them, but another example is the S.S. Ethie.  This ship perished December 11, 1919 and here again, the kind people that lived along the shore helped to save the crew and passengers (including a baby) and took care of them once they were on shore.

Remnants of the SS. Ethie that shipwrecked in 1919.

So yes I want to contribute to society.  It was Henry David Thoreau (who just celebrated his 200 birthday this week) who encouraged "Civil Disobedience."  I would like to advocate contributing to society instead.  If we all contribute a little, the world would be a better place.  That is why I still teach, and still enjoy it, even though the pay sucks!  That is also why I encourage feedback, improve my classes and myself in general.

On Environmental Ethics (5/12/2017)

In a LinkedIn group I am a member of the question came up: “Can an environmental consultant who works for industrial companies or land developers be ethical?”  My answer was a resounding yes. 

In my classes I use an example that goes like this:

During my consultant years, I was sitting behind my desk and Mike the head of our planning group walked into my office.  “Jan, can you attend a meeting next week with a client?  We are going to show him this new sub-division we have designed for him here in Virginia Beach.”  “Sure Mike, can I see the plans, so I can prepare myself a bit?”  Mike returns to my office in a few minutes with the plan.  “Mike, I have been on the property next door, and it has a lot of wetlands.  I want to bet this property probably has wetlands, as well.  I have not done a wetland delineation for this site, shouldn’t we do one?”  “Oops ...  OK Jan, why don’t you go and take a look.”  I go out the next day with my equipment and GPS, find a lot of wetlands on the site, survey them and stick them on a map.  The next day I walk into Mikes office.  Mike goes: “Oops.  Can you make them go away?”  I say: “Sure Mike, lots of money.”  At this point light bulbs go on above the heads of the students in my class.  They are paying attention now, I teach mostly government officials and I now work for the government.  He is finally going to expose the non-ethical corrupt industry of land development that he used to be part of, here it comes, they think!  But I tell my class: “No, when you are working with wetlands, the permitting and mitigation process is time consuming and very expensive and it is better to avoid it.  But if they want to build it the way Mike wants to propose it, the process will cost a lot of money for mitigation and permitting”  That is also what I tell Mike.  And the story continues from there, there was nothing unethical in my proposal.  Mike calls the client, asks for a a for more weeks of time and redesigns the site to avoid the wetlands.

I am proud to say that I have always been ethical in the work I have done.  Often my clients have done a little bit more for the environment than the laws and regulations required they should (thanks to me).  I have tried to show them the beauty and the importance of the resources.  In one case, I found the largest water oak in Virginia on a client's property.  A photo of my client under the tree made it in the local newspaper.  You bet that oak and the surroundings was saved, whether that client was ethical or not.

Ethics is defined as the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity.  As a study it is the discipline that deals with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary).  That is a mouth full, isn’t it?  Here you get to the argument of what is is!  Or what some people think is good or bad may differ from other people.  

There is a whole branch of philosophy devoted to ethics so it is not something I can contribute to; I am just a naturalist, biologist and trainer.  But I can try to live ethical or at least as ethical as possible.  This is what ethics studies:  "What would a person do or how would she/he react under a specific circumstance?"    

But I want to get back to environmental ethics and my job.  An argument can be made that I helped my clients check that box either on an application for a permit or maybe in the back of their conscious saying: "Yes, they have done their environmental due diligence."  I am not even talking about the best thing for the environment.  Like with Mike in that example above, I may have saved a few wetlands, but that subdivision still got build, birds, snakes, and turtles lost their home, the environment was still impacted.  As a consultant with sincere love for the environment the Serenity prayer was my escape hatch:

"Please give me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, the COURAGE to change the things I can and the WISDOM to know the difference!"

That Serenity prayer kept me going, I could not change the outcome, but I had the courage to make a little bit of difference.  That made me feel better.

Even in my current job; I teach people and companies to follow the laws and the regulations.  It makes me feel good, when I get back to my motel room or back home, I feel satisfied; I ticked off those boxes of being a environmental steward, good for the environment.  But does it really help what I do?  I don't know.  I have often said and written that I would feel great that on any specific day in one of my classes of 40 individuals I have 1 or 2 people either change their attitude towards nature or actually become enlightened.  That's when I feel successful.

Often this is what we in the environmental movement need to look for.  No, we cannot stop a project but we can make reduce or minimize the environmental impact of these projects.  Those are our small ethical victories, save the world one turtle at a time.

We cannot stop development and that is not what my job is about.  We just need to make sure that it is done sustainable, responsibly and according to the laws and regulations.  Here my colleague Don and I are inspecting a building site.  We did not find much wrong here.

Procrastinators Unite (5/19/2016)

Why do we procrastinate?  Beats me, and I even do it at times. 

At work there is another deadline looming and man does it get me riled up.  I work in a certificate program that is in place for 17 years or so, and people's certificate expire either on May 31 or November 30.  About 300 every half year.  Their certificate is valid for 3 whole years.  People have certain requirements they have to fulfill to the eligible to recertify, like taking classes during those three years, enter them in a tracking system and pay a small fee.  Well if you look at the date, you know: THE END IS NEAR!  Just today, I already got three emails from people who have not taken one class yet and have 13 days left to get them all in.  Fun!

This is one thing we seem to procrastinate very well: :The end of war", where we will save the lives of young men.
This is a quote on the memorial bridge over the James River in Richmond from Browns Island

Frank Partnoy writes in his book “Wait, the Art and Science of Delay” that procrastination may be good, at least when it comes to making a decision.  I can see that, on the battlefield, in sports, and in making stock decisions; maybe even in photography, taking that perfect shot.

Susanna Halonen argues in her blog in Psychology Today that procrastination actually improves your productivity and happiness:

1. You can therefore concentrate on other (important) things and those things are getting done leaving more time for the thing you procrastinate.  (personally I find this a little farfetched, but OK).
2. Unnecessary tasks disappear with procrastination. (I'll buy that).
3. Procrastination shines a light on what is most important to you. (maybe).
4. Procrastination makes you more creative. (Yes, I can really see that).
5. Procrastination helps you make better decisions. (Partnoy agrees with that)
6. Procrastination leads to better apologies. (I like this one, and yes I have seen some good ones, even the ones like "I started my last online course at 10 pm om May 31 and the Internet went down" ... oh well).

But you could be lying to yourself as Dustin Was suggests in his article, and that is often where I see the people that I deal with.  It is so difficult not to call them out, to rub their noses in it.  Tell them they are full of crap!

Why do I procrastinate?  Looking inward, my excuse is often motivation and inspiration, not because I know I would be making better decisions or have better apologies; I don't go to war.  Halonen's point 4 speaks to me; once inspired and once it flows I can be darn creative!  Points 2 and 3 are also up there.  But once I am inspired watch out, then my motivation kicks in higher gear.  Like earlier this week when I was working on a new course that I was designing.  It was fun, I was going strong.

However, I am different, even when I am inspired.  I need to think and mull things over (as I also describe <here>).  Sometimes I only get one or two slides developed in a day and I can just sit there and think of how to the class is going to go; about what is next.  It is fun and sometimes very exhausting.

Oh my god I just came up with a great apology why I procrastinate with the development of a new class!

On trainers and teaching, Part VI, what walls? (11/25/2015)

It is always interesting to see that when you start something it has unforeseen consequences, in particular when they are positive.  Call it serendipity or coincidence, but it is often not the intent.  In my case, it brought down a few walls, or boundaries.

So what am I talking about?  As I recently mentioned in a post I was developing a course on wetlands and how it relates to stormwater and erosion and sediment control.  We felt there was a tremendous need for a class like this, since we always talk about wetlands in our classes and the need to avoid impacting them.  We felt that I was the person to do this because I have worked as a wetland scientist throughout the U.S.A. since the early 1990-s.  Well, we have rolled out the class and given it at two locations.  The class has been well received and the evaluations are great.  Both the materials and the teacher (me) are well liked.  So there is something to say for being multifarious, a jack of all trades, it helps in thinking things through in developing a class and standing in front of a room and talking about a subject.  I discussed that in this post as well.

A tidal salt marsh in a creek that is a tributary to the York River.  Tidal marshes are really interesting, to the eye they may seem fairly uniform and only occupied by a single species.  But this is far from the truth.  During high tide they are teaming with small (young fish) and at low tide they have fiddler crabs and other critters.  The plant species in them have a very narrow tollerance range of water (tidal) depth.  It is a really neat system.

Why then the unforeseen consequences?  That for a big part may have to do with my personality.  While I love to teach and be in front of a class; I hate to practice, do dry runs of my classes, tell people how it goes, what I am doing, you know it.  I find it difficult to develop outlines of what I am doing or how the class will go (a waste of time almost, I rather be developing the class or think about it).  For me developing a class is an organic I start out with a few ideas and things go from there I put things before it and behind it, wherever it makes sense in my eyes; I brood.  This can be infuriating to my supervisor, although he has learned to live with it and understands it.  However, you can imagine that people who do not know my style and more vested in the subject matter can get concerned when they experience my style first hand.  I do not like to rehearse my classes, and when I do, I find it difficult to treat a group of my colleagues, who I assume know as much as I do of the subject, as the students I am supposed to teach and know very little.  It feels like I am talking down to them and that is something I cannot do.  I like to talk to people at their level, which is probably why people rate me so high as a teacher (am I too arrogant here? I really don't like talking down to people, unless I don't like them, then I talk down to them like the best of them!).  Moreover, I do not rehearse my classes.  As I tell my students in the first class: “You guys are the dress rehearsal and the main event all at the same time!” 

During the development of the class I’ve felt two or three times that the class would be cancelled because of the sensitive issues that wetlands raise in this country.  We understand more and more about their importance as an ecosystem and habitat that needs to be protected, and for that matter the push back that conservationists have had in the past from the development and home building community.  So it is logical that this class was under somewhat of a microscope to start with.  Moreover, people are protective of their own turf, so it is difficult to have an outsider like me teach a subject that another group in our department is responsible for; they are the experts and they had no idea what my level of expertise was or what my teaching style was.  On top of that was my style of course design and development (in other words don't do as I do when you do course design) and my marginal ability to articulate it.

However, I can report all is well and I have received compliments from the group that considered asking us to cancel the classes and we received an offer from them to co-teach the class with me, the greatest compliment I can get.  I consider it a breaking down of a virtual wall between groups that is there whether you want to admit there is a wall or not.

But one thing is for sure you never get to tear down walls or get these neat unforeseen consequences if you don't try!

And yes, I need to really try to be more transparent in my course design, I guess.

On blogging, course design, photography and training (Fairfax, 10/20/2015)

I am having a comfortable landing (I hope) just good, there were a lot of loose ends are being tied down, like in the closing of the year.  I have therefore not written much these past two months; I am way to busy for that.  Yes, consider this a good thing.  I just have too darn much to do or to look forward to.  Here are some of the things:

1. It is the end of the sailing season; if we are lucky we'll get a few more nice days in.  As a rule of thumb, we try to sail on black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving for you non-U.S.A. residents, when most of the people seem to go Christmas shopping) and that generally is my last one for the year, at least on our boat.
2. I am done with my class designs for this years' classes and now I have one and a half month of heavy teaching (and travel) to look forward to (the photo below was taken at 8 pm in a Starbucks in Fairfax while I was writing this blog).
3. I am starting to think about new classes: a photography class, a hydrology class and a class on soil amendments.  How is that for diversity?
4. I have got some other irons in the fire that I cannot write about (yet).
5. In addition the days are getting shorter (bring on Seasonal Affected Disorder or SAD, at least for some, but I think we all slow down when fall and winter rolls around)
6. Finally, one of my co-workers is pregnant, which is great, but it will probably mean a more intensive travel schedule for us next year.  If I was a mother of a new born I would not want to go on overnight trips without the kiddo, especially if I was breast feeding.

On the road again.  My evening coffee at Starbucks, waiting for my computer to start up.

So yes this blog may suffer somewhat.  But I will really try to keep it up with a few interesting items, maybe not about my travels throughout the state, but more about my job and research.  I do not want to make this a "dear diary," so don't worry.

If you write a blog your self you know that there are many pages behind a blog.  I can check how many people read my posts, broken down by post, by day, by week, month or even year.  I know how readers got to my blog: by accident, via another website, what search engine they used, even what browser they used, you name it.  I even know what country they come from (surprise, most of my readers come from the U.S.A., but Russians are running second, followed by Germans and the French).

A lot of bloggers are in it to make money.  Yes, I could allow Google or Amazon to put advertisement on my blog and every time you would click on an add, I would get maybe 5 cents or something like it.  There are even blog posts about boosting traffic to your site like this one: <click here>.  This is how some bloggers are hoping to strike it rich and this is why they create these outrageous blogs.  Who knows, I may eventually break down and allow adds on my site, in the hope that you the readers will make me rich!  We'll see.

As I mentioned before, I started this blog for myself; I wanted to get back to photography and get into writing.  My wife and I had so much experience working all over the world, we felt that those experiences needed to be documented, if not only for our daughter, for future generations.  Moreover, I feel I have so much more to give.

So yes! I am going to teach a photography course again.  The last one I taught was in 1977 while serving in the Dutch Army as the Installation's photographer.  It is fun doing research on photography, or at least slowly trying to get slides together on items such as ISO setting and photographic noise (yes there is such a thing; we used to call it grain when we worked in film).

I took a photograph with my cell phone of a book case in my office from a distance of 12 feet at three different ISO settings (Auto, 100 and 800).  As you can see the ISO 100 setting produced the least noise, the problem is the shutter speed (your lens has to stay open longer), and at low light the camera set at ISO 100 might be subject to movement/shaking of the camera/phone.

I know most of it, but now try to put it in a three hour class that is useful for stormwater inspectors.  Who knows, I may need to make it a six hour class.  We could do so much, even a practicum and have them go out and take pictures; although then I would need to limit the class size (we usually limit our class size to 40 but as a solo teacher I could not manage 40 in the field).  There are really so many photo tips and tricks I could teach them (and you on my blog; if you want to learn more, let me know and leave me a comment).

As I mentioned, I will also be teaching a class on hydrology and in a future post I will be writing a little bit about that.  I found some really neat stuff on some of the history of stormwater management, some of which has fascinated me since I was 18 and enjoyed observing in Yemen when I worked there in the mid 1980s.  Yet another subject dear to my heart.  Stay tuned!

On trainers and teaching, Part V on new courses and old experiences (9/15/2015)

These past two months I have been working on the development of two new courses that I am supposed to be rolling out this fall.  They are both on subjects that I am very familiar with,  so it should be a breeze,  shouldn't it?  Well, not so fast.  I think familiarity makes it often more difficult to explain a subject to a novice in such a way not to blow him or her out of the water.  Making things understandable and a learning experience without being condescending or dumbing it down too much as in being offensive is a challenge.  Up to now I have been relatively successful with it, but I don't want to fail now.

The courses I am working on is a course on wetlands and a course on soils.  Both are geared towards practitioners in erosion and sediment control and stormwater management.  These are people who need to know the basics but definitively do not need to become experts.  In a way they need to be able to interpret reports that they get to review or understand that they need a report when they did not get one.  Having worked intensively as a wetland scientist since 1994 and been involved in soils all the way back since the early 1970s, it is fun developing classes that interesting and applicable.  Thanks goodness, I have a friend, a fellow teacher and a soil scientist (all wrapped up in one person) who is partnering me on the soils class.  David will also be helping me teach it; we make a great team when we are on the road.

For my wetland course I am teaching my students how to recognize a wetland in the field.  So I went out back, behind my home to take pictures, braving ticks, mosquitoes and chiggers.  These trees show clear signs of flooding.  So nice to be out in the field tromping in the woods.  These trees show clear signs of seasonal flooding, the dark wood is how far up (3-4 ft.) the water gets in the winter.

In my class design and delivery I rely on my life experience, dating all the way back to my college years in the mid 1970s.  Yes, I have that advantage, I have all this experience.  However, I feel that in the past six years I have somewhat stagnated in my professional field.  I can't believe that I've been away from field work and into the class room (and class design room) for that long, having to rely on my past experience and on stories that I now hear from colleagues.

This realization that I have such a multifarious experience came rushing back to me these past few weeks or so since I received a surprise email from an old high school friend of mine who lives in a foreign country.  It was fun to hear from her, and in writing back made me relive a lot of my life back then, but also between the time that we parted our ways and now.  I wrote her a very brief email where I described what happened to my wife and I during the passed 38 years and our world travels.  Just thinking about that email makes my head spin, which is why we typically don't mention it to people, because when we do, we mostly get blank stares.  But yes, I (we, my wife and I) need to write (a book?) about our experiences in particular about the time we lived in Uganda in the late 1970s under Idi Amin.

Idi Amin

But come to think of it, all these 38 years worth of experiences are what I bring to class development and teaching, and I hope many teachers do the same.  When I teach, I tend to tell stories, anecdotes, and give examples of what I have seen (no I don't teach about Idi).  It is relatively easy, having worked for almost 40 years.  However, I sparingly use my international experience in my classes.  When I teach the stormwater classes I will mention my experience in Nepal where deforestation resulted in the disappearance of streams, of firewood and fodder for livestock, or worst, landslides.  I sometimes see students look at each other and smile (kind of in disbelieve that I also worked in that field) when I start a story with: "When I worked in the mining industry in New Mexico ..."  But I really did work in the mining industry.  I hope that these stories makes the classroom experience more fun for my students, and of course more interesting and a better learning experience.    For myself, I do think it is so invaluable to be able to bring real life work experience with me in the class room and I even  gladly borrow examples from other people's experience to illustrate points (I will give credit and will not claim them as my own).

I kind of miss being out there in the field and making new experiences.  I am starting to notice that I am getting rusty.  Thanks goodness I still learn and gain other experiences and expertise by fixing my sail boat, sailing and traveling through Virginia; I will never stop learning.  Hopefully I can apply my boat stories to my teaching one of these days.  If you are a teacher I hope you too reach in that big bag of experience you are carrying on your back.

On a work trek with my wife (and one of our two dogs) in the mountains of Nepal in 1982 or 83.  I sometimes had to walk 7 days for a an one hour meeting and walk back seven days.  Thanks goodness it was through the project area and I always had my eyes and ears open to do project (extension) type work and talk natural resources conservation.  This is probably close to the hill (looking at it) that dammed the Kali Gandaki valley by a landslide after this year's earthquake. 

Reflection (9/4/2015)

Amazing, this blog was started as a photo blog.  I posted a nice picture from my sailboat on June 25, 2013, with just an amazingly simple one sentence statement, that had less depth than something a 6^th grader would write.  I used to be an avid photographer and this was my way of trying to get back to my hobby.  Moreover, since I would be traveling to a different part of the state of Virginia to teach every week, I felt it was a great opportunity to share some pictures of the often beautiful sights or at least my views of the State.  Finally, it also was a way for me to let off some steam.  That day was the first day of a forced move where I and my program moved from one State agency to another State agency and that caused a lot of anxiety to the group of people who were forced to move to the other agency.  We did not feel welcome at all, there were definitive signs that we were not, and we did not know what would happen.  Comparing notes among colleagues now, the anxiety has gone away and we feel accepted and fine where we are.  Now just a raise and everything will be fine!

From left to right these are the three locations I have successively worked at in Richmond over the past six years (left DCR, DEQ to the right and what I would call the half way house in the middle) .  I have not been job (employer) hopping, just forced building hopping and agency shifting.

In fact, I really did started this blog for me.  I announced my blog to no one; not even my family.  I did not want my ego or anything else to get in the way of expressing myself and doing what I did.  I had no ambition with this blog.  Little did I know this darn blog would grow up to be like this.  When I post this entry, it will be my 254^th.

Looking back through some of the posts I put up, there definitively is a trend.  I have become more verbose; I have become bolder; more outspoken; become a bit more of the teacher that I am in real life; maybe too self-indulgent; and taking myself a bit too serious?  Yes, I have always tried to include an outside link or two (too much Wikipedia maybe) since I do not want to claim to be a “know it all”, but as I mentioned in this blog post, there is a lot of stuff stored in that big head of mine.

Did I mention my big head?  This picture was taken last year during a nature walk in the Roanoke area last fall (2014) after a fun day of lecturing in a nature retreat.

So why write about this now?  There is no anniversary of this blog or of the move to DEQ.  Well, this past Thursday morning I read an article in the newspaper about a Dutchman with the name Jaap Haartsen.  Mr. Haartsen is the inventor of the Bluetooth.  He invented it while working for Ericsson in Sweden.  It seems that he only works (worked) 40 hours per week, turns his phone off at 6 pm and does not check emails in the evenings and on weekends.  Moreover he goes hiking on weekends.  It claims that his way of recharging and reconnecting with real life is what he needs to be inventive and creative.  This is very different from what we see here in the U.S.  When I came in the office this morning, the first thing my supervisor said was "have a productive day" (and he says that almost every day), that is what our U.S. culture seems to be increasingly based on, productivity, not creativity.  It would be so much nicer if he would wish me "a creative day", because that is what course design should be, especially when your do it from scratch.  I think Google is still doing it right, giving people an hour or so do do something different, but the Amazons and other groups, it seems like they are just emphasizing putting in hours and mouse clicks.

So the story about Jaap Haartsen made me think about this YouTube clip that I saw recently on Nature RX; it is a spoof on the need to reconnect with nature,  I have written a lot about it in my blogs and borrowed the phrase "nature deficit disorder."  Looking at the labels, I have used the term in at least 20 blogs of the 253 that I have written up to now.  I used Nature 79 times as a label on posts.  I do think it is so darn important to reconnect with nature, with ocean, with water, you name it; just the natural world.  I find it disarming, calming.  As the naturalist John Burroughs wrote:

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order"

No, I will not invent the next Bluetooth, but it brings down the blood pressure; it is where I formulate a lot of my ideas for my classes, my blog and just life.

We went for a sundown/moon rise kayak trip last Saturday which culminated with a picnic dinner on a narrow sandy peninsula in the bay.  It was very private and the views were spectacular.  This is what I call taking care of your "Nature Deficit Disorder", while even getting some exercise. 

On trainers and teaching, Part IV (8/20/2015)

Most days when I commute to Richmond I listen to Doctor Radio on Satellite Radio SiriusXM Channel 110.   Thursday mornings between 8 and 10 is the Emergency Medicine Show with Drs. Billy Goldberg and Howard Greller.  In his show Dr. Billy lamented about someone complaining about him being a clown on the radio and his shtick and that struck a nerve with me.

Being a public speaker/teacher who travels throughout the state of Virginia people are always surprised to hear that I consider myself an introvert.  When I am in front of a class I make the darnest effort to lose that and I try to fake being as much as an extrovert as I can be.  Yes I move around a lot, that is my way of loosening up; I joke, I tell (to many?) stories and anecdotes; and during breaks I try to interact with the students to see how the class is going.  Yes, I have been told that I am too flippant or cynical at times, but in my eyes that's to make a point.   Trying to be an extrovert is absolutely exhausting to me!  It is so nice to just sit alone in a restaurant later that evening and people watch, not having to interact with anyone.  There are exceptions of course, and that is when I teach with close friends.

So yes, I do understand Dr. Billy, you have to be serious in your job, work is a serious business, but you need an outlet, some levity whether you are an emergency doctor, or an introvert in a job made for extroverts.  You can heal, teach, do your job at your best without taking yourself too serious all the time.  This reminded me of the episode of MASH where Alan Alda came into the O.R. dressed like Groucho Marx. 

How can I be sure I am an introvert?  I’ve knew it all along, but really figured it out when I went to leadership school for the UU church we go to.  We had to do the Myers-Briggs Personality Test and it showed I was an INFP or someone who is an Introvert, who relies on Intuition, who is Feeling and Perceiving.  Reading some of its descriptions even in Wikipedia INFP describes me to a T, including the desire for creativity but also (as most of the people close to me will attest to) my sensitivity to criticism.  Wikipedia shows an interesting list of people who are INFPs.  Wow. 

How does this relate to training?  Well borrowing this from Wikipedia:

• I – Introversion preferred to extraversion: INFPs tend to be quiet and reserved. They generally prefer interacting with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances, and they expend energy in social situations (whereas extraverts gain energy).
• N – Intuition preferred to sensing: INFPs tend to be more abstract than concrete. They focus their attention on the big picture rather than the details, and on future possibilities rather than immediate realities.
• F – Feeling preferred to thinking: INFPs tend to value personal considerations above objective criteria. When making decisions, they often give more weight to social implications than to logic.
• P – Perception preferred to judgment: INFPs tend to withhold judgment and delay important decisions, preferring to "keep their options open" should circumstances change.

Combine that with statements like low assertiveness and poor organization, and that is probably how I might be perceived by some of my colleagues.  My office may look like a mess, my brain is a mess, but it is all there.  I brood, and at one point it all come out and it flows out on Power Point, in a blog, all in a concise package that we can call a class, or rambling like this.  Even in planning trips, or shed building projects in the back yard.   My wife has learned to roll with the punches it all comes out ok even without paper plans and assertiveness.  I know it and so does she.  

On trainers and teaching, Part III (7/30/2015)

The latest issues of ErosionControl Magazine featured an interview that Carol Brzozowski did with me a year and a half or so ago.  I really had forgotten about it and about a half year ago, I figured that the interview had flopped, and it was all just hype and would never get published.  I added a copy of the article below (you will need to click on the article to get a larger version which might be easier to read).  I’m pretty thrilled by it; the only thing I would have liked to see is that it listed my current employee (the Department of Environmental Quality or DEQ).  I am having a lot of fun here, and moreover, I have a set of great colleagues and co-instructors here that really do not get mentioned in the article.  In a way it is a bit of a shame I did not get to see the article before it got published otherwise I would have asked to add those things.  Oh well.  You always hear that from people who get interviewed.

Anyway it is a nice closure to a fairly stressful few months with a lot of work, travel, some health issues, and even some mechanical issues at home like the kitchen sink and a lawn mower breaking.  Hopefully, that light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train barreling towards me.

Regular readers of my blog, my students and my friends know I have a passion for the environment, teaching, fairness, and social justice.  I am really hoping that this article did some justice (pardon the pun) to some of these beliefs and that I will be able to continue to do this work for a long time.  I have a wealth of life experience to share with people, and I really feel it would be a waste if I don't.  In the end I hope to leave one very small corner of this world a little better than I found it, or maybe better, when it found me.  Wouldn't that be nice!

On trainers and teaching, Part II (6/11/2015)

As a teacher/instructor I am getting this feeling that I am becoming overly-critical of how others prepare their lectures, prepare their materials, or do their teaching jobs.  This sounds horribly arrogant; I caught myself being critical yesterday when I reported on the various classes and seminars I attended in the past few days.  I am aware that I am becoming a curmudgeon in my old age and it is something I want to avoid at all cost, but I often wonder why people just plainly accept lousy teachers and sit through a class or seminar.  I have a lot of very good fellow teachers in our group (and then to think we are not professional, or I should say formally trained instructors); we all have our own style (thank God), but it is more about classes and lectures given by people outside the agency I work for.  Some of these courses have nothing to do with the subjects I generally teach; they even include some of the sermons I see at the church I visit.

One of my fellow teachers in the class for inspectors that he and I taught.

That my criticism may be off base and/or lead to (the perception of) arrogance became more apparent after talking with my supervisor and after reading reviews from various classes I taught and some of the classes that other people taught while I was observing.  They really loved the latest class that I was somewhat critical about (in my head but not vocally to the instructor, in particular since the reviews were very good).  I really wonder what I missed, but it appears that students were glad to learn more details on subjects they learned in a previous classes, in particular in preparation for the exam they have to take.  So yes, while we say that we don't teach them to take an exam, in reality we probably do, or that is what our students want us to do.

Teaching is something I truly enjoy and talk about in my blog (look for the keyword/label: teaching or training).  I too tend to get very decent reviews and some not so good reviews (see the photo below; yes, there are always a clown or two in your class).  I take serous reviews seriously and try to learn from them, but these were somewhat rediculous.

The joker

The angry person

I am still not aware that I have an opinionated liberal agenda, other than on that specific day, I talked about evolution and the need to preserve trees.  However, I suspect this was the guy I asked to stop having very loud side conversations with some of his fellow students while I was teaching and others were trying to listen to me instead of to him.  So yes I do take reviews personal and try to learn from them.  Another one of my favorite positive reviews went something like this: "My supervisor forced me to come to this class.  I did not expect much, but I actually learned something."  I really do think there is a joker in every class I teach.

An online search on teaching strategies and instructional design brought my attention to a few things. Deborah Davis gives the following recommendations in here book: The Adult Learner’s Companion: A Guide for the Adult College Student:

• Use the adult learner’s experience and knowledge as a basis from which to teach.

• Show adult learners how this class will help them attain their goals.

• Make all course and text material practical and relevant to the adult learner. 

• Show adult learners the respect they deserve.

• Adjust your teaching speed to meet the needs of the older learner.

• Motivate adult learners to learn new information.

In his "Rapid Elearning Blog" Tom Kuhlmann gives five little nuggets:

• Instructional design is more than just putting information in front of learners

• Instructional design has clear goals and gets learners focused on the right things

• Instructional design provides context and perspective

• Instructional design compresses the learning process and saves time (this is probably the one I violate the most)

• Instructional design engages learners with clear and meaningful content

I really like to do all these things in my class design and teaching; maybe subconsciously, but I try.  As I tell some of my students, "I have sat through classes that were so boring that I promised myself that if I ever had to give a talk or a class, I would never be like that."

I have two questions for the readers of my blog:

1. Do you also notice that you've become overly critical (in a positive way) either with age or since you have become more seasoned in your job?
2. If you are an adult educator or attend a lot of training classes, do your agree with the two bulleted lists above or are there any other bullets you would like to add?  

Thanks.

Jan

On training and teaching (4/2/2015)

Today not a pretty picture or something like that.   However, just a picture of a class review I had today.  Worse, I got a standing ovation after finishing the class I taught today.   While it felt great, this is not why I teach and it made me feel very flustered.  Yes it feels good to be appreciated,  but I teach to make sure people learn something and use it to better the world we live in.  Very much like what I mentioned two blog posts ago: I want to convince people that environmental responsibility and coservation is worthwhile and important.

So these past two days I presented a class on the the use of plants in stormwater and erosion and sediment control.   It is the course that I have been developing during the past few months; it is my baby, something I am very passionate about.

When I go about developing and giving classes like this I start with my audience in mind.   I think about what I would like to learn  if I were them.  I have been in many seminars and classes where I wondered why the hell I was sitting there and I made a promise to myself that I would not want to do that.  If I notice that I put people to sleep during my talks, I will retire.  I decided to keep it interesting and fun.  Put in a joke so now and then; yes, in one of my reviews someone called me flippant.   But I believe in being active and giving it my full 150%.  Getting back to my motel room I literally pass out and have to take a nap to recover enough to go to dinner.

Yes, I really love people and love to give them the tools to do what is best for this world.   I believe that people need to coexist with each other and with the natural world; only we can make this a better place to live.  We humans are that technological advanced that we can alter our environment instead of adapt to the environment.   And that is what I like t OK convey.  No I am not dangerous,  but I want to give everyone the tools.

So how do I do this?  I am very unconventional to my boss' frustration .   I create a general outline of where I want to go with my classes.   I know the audience and next I just start throwing things to PowerPoint.   I first brood a lot.  I design the class in my head and then at one point it gets together and I bleed on PowerPoint.   I try to start with the background,  or some introductory theory.  In my plant class I started with parts of the plants.  I went on to how we humans want to classify things or pigeon hole everything.   After that I developed something an the importance of native plants.  The laws and regulations were next, after which I talked about more practical things.  I never develop speaker's notes.  I don't know, but that's what  my brooding is all about and the subsequent slides.  I just start talking having some idea where I want to go and yes I make it up as I go but I never lie and the stuff I make up is always true and based on facts stored in that big head of mine. And yes, somehow it works.   As I write this I am tired, but satisfied.

Oh well this is probably a very egocentric post, but hopefully I am teaching someone something about teaching and motivation.

Virginia Native Plants (3/27/2015)

I am completing the development of a class that will be titled "Plants for Erosion and Sediment Control & Stormwater Management".  I will start teaching this class next week and am looking forward to it.  Hopefully it will not bomb; from what I hear in the field, everybody is looking forward to it.  I have a huge responsibility resting on my shoulders.

In the process of doing research for this topic I ran into now three reference guides that I thought were very good:

1. A native plant guide for Virginia's Eastern Shore (click here)
2. A native plant guide for Virginia's Northern Neck (click here)
3. A native plant guide for northern Virginia (click here and you'll find it on this page)

All are really good and a lot of fun to browse through,  Yes my course will deal with native plants and alien invaders (as in plants).  The department I work in is spearheading the effort in creating these guides, and word is that the Hampton Roads will be next, maybe divided into the south side and north side.  

This division into the north and south side is so indicative of what is going on in our area politically and socially.  Everyone wants to make this the greater Hampton Roads area but the darn Hampton Roads and the tunnels divide us and it is hard not to see that as a barrier between us and them (who ever us and them are).  Oh well.

Back to my class.  I will let the readers know how it is going, these next two months of traveling will tell.  The photo below was taken two Sundays ago, and to me it is symbolic of a new beginning, a new class and more respect for nature in general and of native plants in particular.  Of course it was taken in Newport News Park just around sunrise.