Favorite student stories

Getting started...

My name is Beth Benoit, and I feel as though I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to have a job that she loves. Teaching psychology at the college level has been my dream job, and teaching at Granite State College has been exciting, fun and fulfilling. I live in Meredith, New Hampshire, on Lake Waukewan, with my first husband, Roger (just kidding about the "first husband" - he's also the only husband). We just had our 41st anniversary, so conclude whatever you wish about my devotion, my strong standards, or maybe my high tolerance level and patience? Anyhow, we have five kids and six grandchildren. One of my students noted that those eleven are my "embedded research subjects" because their pictures and stories crop up in my PowerPoint presentations and in my classes.

I seem to have become a computer geek, thanks in part to the folks at Granite State College who talked me into investigating the teaching of adult online classes a few years ago, and now I'm hooked. So I'm excited about having a blog, and maybe becoming a "cool kid." Ha ha...fat chance. I love the folks I work with at Granite State College, and have loved working with adult learners who have so many stories. Lots of them are lifelong learners. That used to be Granite State College's name!

I love to travel (see above about how much I love online courses) and so far have visited every country in western and northern Europe. I can go on and on about the best of every favorite city, so maybe not a good idea to ask me about that unless you have a lot of time or maybe need something to help you sleep. I'm a voracious reader, especially fiction. I guess that makes me "book rich" but maybe (or as a result!) "cash poor."

Born in Ohio (a great place to be "from") with a twin sister (not identical) and with a lot of music around us, I used to sing professionally, and I play several instruments. Last year I decided to learn to play the harp (it's really hard, but surprisingly, doesn't sound too bad even if you make a mistake because the strings are so angelic-sounding). Then in November I decided to try my hand at the violin after becoming enamored with the Irish music at our daughter's wedding (he made it look so easy!!), and got a hundred-year-old violin for Christmas. The violin, however, is an instrument that doesn't sound good if you make a mistake. As a matter of fact, it doesn't even sound all that good when you're not making mistakes, but I'm nothing if not determined. I'm also hoping that maybe learning new skills will help ward off Alzheimer's, but based on my questionable memory skills, it doesn't seem to be working. I also love to cook, though I don't recall that I had much enthusiasm for it back when I was feeding five kids under the age of nine.

We just bought a Prius yesterday, and are feeling very virtuous that we've made an official effort to be "green," but may be kind of defeating the purpose since of course all I want to do is drive around in it like a16-year-old who just got her license. We also have an Arabian mare (how much more "green" can you get?) and we're kind of animal nuts.

We're thrilled that four of our children and their spouses, and four of our six grandchildren live fairly close, and we have our fingers crossed that the others will be moving back here from Kansas soon. My husband has been retired for over ten years, but I don't see myself retiring as long as that violin and harp can keep my brain from rotting...

Consuming alcohol can increase racial stereotyping

Tuesday, April 10, 2012 by Beth Benoit

The effects of alcohol on the brain are always interesting, challenging, and worth studying, as well as sometimes scary, sad and aggravating. And my students at Granite State College love examining the subject. Alcohol strongly impacts the lives of many, and for everyone, studying about it adds to their learning about something that ultimately affects most in some way. And maybe it will have an impact on them in the future, so it's good to have that knowledge in your back pocket!

In our Introduction to Psychology courses at Granite State College, we examine alcohol's effects on consciousness. It's always interesting for my students to learn about the effects on the brain of alcohol and other potentially addictive substances. And of course, not everyone becomes addicted. Yet there are still some effects to examine.

My students learn about how those "filters" of consciousness get erased...for example, how alcohol relaxes anxiety-based responses - like what happens if you're kind of nervous about going to a party so you think it's helpful for you to have a couple of beers or glasses of wine to "relax"? Is it a good idea to do that? How does it work? And what about how you may say and or do things you're less likely to do if alcohol weren't a part of the picture, and how the brain's neurotransmitters respond?

Ah, "neurotransmitters" sounds like such a technical word doesn't it? But we learn the basics of how those little guys work in that great Introduction to Psychology course, and it's more interesting than terrifying! My students - both adults who are returning to college and all students who are just hoping to increase their knowledge - are always fascinated by this topic.

Here's some information about how you can take this and other psychology courses at Granite State College http://www.granite.edu/academics/degrees/bachelor/psychology.php

So here's a little about the study I described in the title of this article. First a little background: Alcohol is known to break down those little internal barriers...the ones that say, "Yikes! I'd better not say or do that!"

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-racial-stereotyping-exposed-alcohol-related-images.html

So, if you were in my class, we'd discuss how alcohol was found to make people more likely to express any "racial bias" they'd been trying to cover up. What does that say about what's really going on in peoples' brains?

You can join us in an online class or for a regular classroom experience. Let's see if we can figure this one out!

Could aggressive parents use a course in Child Psychology at Granite State College??

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 by Beth Benoit

I was horrified to read that an annual Easter egg hunt in Colorado Springs has been canceled this year. Was it because the kiddies misbehaved? Was there some egg-throwing that got out of hand? Well, not exactly. Apparently, it's the parents whose behavior was out of hand.

"Too many parents determined to see their children get an egg jumped a rope marking the boundaries of the children-only hunt at Bancroft Park last year. The hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of eggless tots and the rules-abiding parents.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/53794462-68/parents-hunt-egg-easter.html.csp

Recently, the news has been filled with stories of "helicopter parents" - those parents who hover above their children and are a tad, shall we say, "overinvolved" in their kids' lives. Those are the parents who demand that teachers recognize how special their child is. (Aren't all children special?) They argue with teachers if their child doesn't get the high grade they'd hoped for and make such a habit of speaking for their children that their children may get tongue-tied when expected to speak for themselves.

Actually, the children sometimes become so unable to do anything for themselves that Mommy or Daddy may end up doing the homework, the science project, and even write college papers! Happily, I haven't seen that at Granite State College, but I know it happens.

What I do wish is that these clueless parents would take a course in Child Psychology. (We have them at Granite State College - both in the classroom and online...that's my plug for our wonderful college.) Often, at the end of that course, my students say they wish their parents had had a course like that, and they might have been raised differently! Many of our students are adult learners and people who have returned to school for a college degree. But we do have a philosophy that the ideal target audience is a "lifelong learner." So that should include everyone!

It's easy to express dismay over how "different things are now." One thing that does give some strength to that argument is that parents are having fewer children than ever before. Might that make a difference in how involved parents are? Parents may have more time to be involved in their childrens' lives. But there's another factor to consider: Both parents are likely to be working now, so that cuts down on how much time both parents have to devote to "helicoptering" their children's lives.

These are the interesting kinds of things you can learn in a course on Child Growth and Development or Human Development at Granite State College.

How to get the most out of studying

Thursday, March 22, 2012 by Beth Benoit

I so often see students in my Online Classes for Adults at Granite State College who seem to struggle. Sometimes they just seem to be adrift, not knowing how to begin. Or they do okay at the start, but then get overwhelmed as they get more involved in their class.

Here's a video series I just discovered that offers some good stuff for students:

Stephen Chew, professor and chair of the psychology department at Samford University, has produced a video series titled "How to Get the Most Out of Studying": http://www.samford.edu/how-to-study/

Here is a summary of each video:

Video 1: Beliefs That Make You Fail…Or Succeed.

The first video examines common mistaken beliefs students often possess that undermine their learning. The video tries to correct those misconceptions with accurate beliefs about learning.

Video 2: What Students Should Understand About How People Learn.

The second video introduces a simple but powerful theory of memory, Levels of Processing, that can help students improve their study.

Video 3: Cognitive Principles for Optimizing Learning.

The third video operationalizes the concept of level of processing into four principles that students can use to develop effective study strategies.

Video 4: Putting the Principles for Optimizing Learning into Practice.

The fourth video applies the principles of deep processing to common study situations, including note taking and highlighting while reading.

Video 5: I Blew the Exam, Now What?

This video addresses what students should and should not do when they earn a bad grade on an exam.

In Ireland with President Obama

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Yes, I really was!

Well, maybe I should back the truck up a little...I wasn't actually with him. It's more like I just happened to be in Dublin at the same time as President Obama, on May 23, 2011.

We were on the plane to Ireland the Saturday before, for the wedding of our niece when the stewardess on Aer Lingus showed us a newspaper with the story of President Obama's upcoming visit. It was the beginning of our introduction to how much the Irish people love him. Everywhere we went, when people heard our American accents, they talked about how they love him.The maid in our hotel said she was watching the TV coverage of his visit from every room she cleaned. (She also said, with her Irish lilt, "He's 'gawjus.' ")

Shops had T-shirts and Obama souvenirs. (I got one, of course.) And an extra edition of the newspaper bore a huge photo of him, with the headline: WELCOME HOME!

Many of the restaurants, pubs and other buildings sported signs and red, white and blue balloons. Here's one where we had lunch:

Here's are two pictures from the television in our room, with live coverage of him arriving in Dublin:

Are you a perfectionist?

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Beth Benoit

A new book coming out, called Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong, by Alina Tugend, looks very interesting. An article about it in The New York Times describes how making mistakes might be "psychologically healthy."

Teaching psychology classes at Granite State College makes my ears always perk up when I even hear the word "psychology." (There's a similar effect that describes how we are likely to hear our own name, even when in a noisy crowd and no one else heard it. It's called "the cocktail party effect." Social psychology has a million of those cool ideas!)

So back to Tugend's book. She points out that the important difference for those with perfectionist tendencies between a psychologically healthy perfectionism and an unhealthy one is whether those tendencies "rule - or ruin - their lives." An example she gives is a person she describes who likes all the glasses in his cupboard lined up in a certain way. If anyone puts them in a different order, he doesn't freak out. And he doesn't expect to be perfect in everything he does.

I see tendencies like this in my adult students sometimes. Students in my adult online classes have to write papers, and when I carefully correct any errors, I sometimes get an anguished response that they "can't believe they made that mistake." I try to remind them that that's what being a student is. It involves learning, not being perfect to begin with!

So don't think of mistakes as "nasty secrets." Think of all the learning you can be doing if you don't demand perfection from the beginning. At Granite State College, we'll give you the best we have to offer and you may just end up feeling close to perfect!

If You're Happy and You Know It....

Friday, April 29, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Remember that children's song? Well, if you live in Somerville, Massachusetts, you don't have to clap your hands to show that you're happy. Somerville (for those who aren't from New England, it sounds like "Summerville") officials, led by its major, Joseph A. Curtatone, thought it would be a good idea because they wanted to see whether projects like parks and bike paths have an effect on the happiness of people in the town.

This is the kind of project that's perfect for a social psychology class. (We have them online for adult education here at Granite State College.)

Even learning how to put together a survey is an important skill. We read all the time about how "surveys show" and "statistics show," but it helps to know that how you phrase a question can influence the answer you get.

Oh, and did you know that Somerville is where Marshmallow Fluff was invented???

Update on Tiger Mom

Friday, April 29, 2011 by Beth Benoit

You may recall my earlier post about the self-described "Tiger Mom," in the book called The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom, by Amy Chua. She wrote about her tactics for child-raising. Many felt they were unusually strict - no sleepovers, no school clubs except for academically-oriented ones, hours of violin or piano practice daily, etc.

Well, the latest news is that her oldest daughter, Sophia, who's a senior in high school, applied to colleges and got into both Harvard and Yale. Here's the news story: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/national_world&id=8057624

The adult college degree students in my Child Growth and Development class discussed Chua's book when we were discussing parenting techniques. Hearing the update wowed all of us. Her techniques might not be on the "how-to" list that most of us would ascribe to, but she did get results. And now her daughter has started a blog. Wow, blogs are getting popular! The lovely thing about Sophia is that she writes that she likes both her parents. There are certainly some interesting dynamics that could afford thought-provoking ideas in many psychology classes.

Changing your life around

Friday, April 29, 2011 by Beth Benoit

One of my adult college degree students wrote the following on the Discussion Board in one of my online courses (and gave me permission to use the words, though not the name):

"I too had a hard time in high school. I wanted some sort of identity. Somehow I got the idea that I wanted to rebel against the establishment. I wore a black leather jacket and smoked cigarettes. I hung around the "cool people" who were also rebels. I graduated high school with a C average. My self esteem was low and my self concept was of a rebel. I did what I wanted when I wanted. This led me to getting in trouble with my mother and I finally moved out when I was 21. I wasted away years of my life until I decided to go to college. My self concept is of a level-headed person with a goal to graduate and become full time employed in the field of behavioral science. I really changed my life around."

This is the kind of story I hear so often from my students at Granite State College. You don't have to have had a hard time in high school, of course, but if you have, you may appreciate the benefits of working on an adult college degree because of your earlier experiences. I love hearing their stories, and, as I may have already admitted in my blogs, I always cry at graduation. It's a moving sight to see all these elated graduates. Each one has a story too.

Could you be the Happiest Person in America?

Friday, March 18, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Who is the happiest person in America? Well, according to the demographics set up by Gallup polls, here's the description:

A tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year.

The New York Times recently had an article about this poll. Here's the article.

The fun thing about this article was that it broke down the happy and not-so-happy areas across the United States. So it showed that people in Hawaii, North Dakota and Wyoming were the happiest, overall. Here's the breakdown by state.

And here's information about people in the least happy states: They're in W. Virginia, Kentucky, much of Ohio (where I'm from!) lots of Arkansas, Arizona and Mississippi. Trying to figure out what it is about living in these states that makes for unhappy people is a thought-provoking conundrum.

That made me start thinking about what makes a person happy. In psychology, there's a new branch of interest called "positive psychology." In psychology, we're always examining things like why people do what they do, why people feel the way they do, and what makes people tick. And in studying positive psychology, we try to figure out how you can make yourself happier!

When you take one of the many psychology courses at Granite State College, you'll learn about all of this stuff and more!

What might make you happy? Getting a college degree is a goal for a lot of people. If it's the one for you, check us out.

Tiger Mom

Monday, March 7, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Unless you've only been reading about Snooki lately, you have probably heard about the infamous "Tiger Mom." She's Amy Chua, and she wrote a book called, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which has people talking all over the country about parenting. She claims that there's a reason for the sterotype of "Chinese kids" being successful. She says that Chinese moms drive their kids and get results. And talking about parenting - how to do it, how it's done now, how it was done in earlier days, and how it's done in other cultres - is something we discuss a lot in my Human Development and Child Growth and Development classes atGranite State College.

As Amy writes in a Wall Street Journal article , "Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• watch TV or play computer games

• choose their own extracurricular activities

• get any grade less than an A

• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin."

Interestingly, as I write this, there are 7,878 responses to this article.

Whew! So what's going on? Ideas about parenting are always interesting to consider. Do you think your parents were too strict? Were they harder on you than on your younger siblings? And do parents from other cultures raise their children differently than parents in your culture?

In our psychology classes, we especially love to discuss cultural differences. Take a look at the courses we offer at Granite State College, and you can decide later how your mother will feel about your choice!

Getting "dooced" at Granite State College

Sunday, February 27, 2011 by Beth Benoit

I'm reading an interesting article about blogging in a New York Times Magazine article, entitled "Mommy-Bloggest." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/magazine/27armstrong-t.html)

Talk about inspiration! She typically has 100,000 visitors to her site, Dooce.com, "where she writes about her kids, her husband, her pets, her treatment for depression and her life as a liberal ex-Mormon living in Utah." Oh, and her site brings in an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 a month or more.

I don't know how many visitors I get to my blogging site for Granite State College, but while I promise I won't be writing about my recalcitrant Maytag washer or the exciting act of changing my newest granddaughter's diaper, I do hope I get across how exciting and challenging it is to teach at Granite State College though.

My students are always introducing me to new ways of looking at things. (I used to think that was my job, but now I understand how these things work both ways!)

In my online social psychology class, we've been discussing the concept of "group influence." Ah! Bullying and cliques! There are two relevant concepts. For several days students recounted the usually painful stories of bullying in school and cliques in middle and high school. Then one of the students pointed out that there are all kinds of cliques. Even being in an online class is a clique. Good point! And I suspect that those of us in this online class feel we're the Cool Kids.

If only it were that easy to raise your self-esteem! But one thing I've heard over and over from students when they get their diplomas: They're so proud of themselves and so glad they took that first step and tried their first class.

So of course, I have my fingers crossed that my blogs, though they don't seem to be bringing in those mega-thousands that Heather Hamilton is accruing, will get out the message that you can change your life by getting a college education. And you can do it all online (at least at Granite State College you can!). And of course, you can also become a Cool Kid.

Putting nuclear war in perspective

Saturday, February 12, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Mary Clouter, one of my students in my online social psychology class at Granite State College  found an old post of mine from a list serve for psychology professors. (Mary also has a blog site of her own for Granite State College!) My students continue to amaze me with their intellectual curiosity, and their thoughtful posts. This week, we're discussing aggression, and Mary found the following, which had been in an earlier edition of the textbook (by Dave Myers) that we use in our social psychology class:

Preventing Nuclear War

International Law professor Roger Fisher proposed a way to personalize the victims of war:

It so happens that a young man, usually a navy officer, accompanies the President wherever he goes. This young man has a black attaché case which contains the codes that are needed to fire nuclear weapons.

I can see the President at a staff meeting considering nuclear war as an abstract question. He might conclude, "On SIOP Plan One, the decision is affirmative. Communicate the Alpha line XYZ."  Such jargon keeps what is involved at a distance.

My suggestion then, is quite simple. Put that needed code number in a little capsule and implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer will carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanies the President. If ever the President wants to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he can do so is by first, with his own hands, killing one human being.

"George," the President would say, "I¹m sorry, but tens of millions must die."  The President then would have to look at someone and realize what death is - what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet:   it¹s reality brought home.

When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon, they said, "My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgment. He might never push the button."

Adapted from "Preventing Nuclear War" by Roger Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March, 1981, pp. 11-17.

Customer relations

Sunday, January 23, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Awhile ago, I taught a course at Plymouth State University in a business-type field called "Industrial/Organizational Psychology." It was an interesting change for me, since most of my courses at Granite State College are in the area of Introduction to Psychology, Human Development, Social Psychology and Abnormal Psychology.

One of the things that is examined in Industrial/Organizational Psychology is how to improve customer relations. You can probably think of a few: things like offering the best product you know how to produce, having someone listen to customers' complaints (and not just an answering machine)...well, you get the idea.

Recently when I ordered a CD from a small online company, I got the following email response. (I guarantee you that they didn't pay me to write about them...and they don't even know I'm writing this!) I thought it was not only fun and clever, but also a great example of trying to encourage a positive relationship with a customer. Now there's an example of what we examine in social psychology - what it takes to create a positive relationship between people! And while many people decry the loss of social relationships as a result of only connecting with people through computers, I think this is a great example of how even an anonymous company can make you feel that they're human and that they recognize you are too. (And that they're pretty fun.)

So here's the email response I got. Prepare to chuckle:

"Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, January 23, 2011.

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!"

One problem at a time...

Saturday, January 22, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Discussing gender differences is always fun - and of course, challenging, and we do a lot of it in my adult online college psychology classes at Granite State College. We also discuss other interesting variations in humans - size (taller people, for example, fare better, sadly, in some instances like hiring, presidential elections, etc.), geographical location (where you live and grow up can influence your behavior), SES (a very complex idea - the initials stand for "socioeconomic status"), and of course, racial characteristics.

This latter is, as you can imagine, a topic that's near and dear to the hearts of psychologists as we research every imaginable concept, with some fascinating findings that relate to prejudice, an interesting idea called "outgroup homogeneity bias" (people in any racial group tend to have a hard time differentiating people in other racial groups: "They all look alike, but we all look distinctive") and other areas that pertain to that questionable and artificial attempt to distinguish people by their race.

I remember I had a young female student when I taught at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the 1990's. She was from Taiwan, and said that when she first came to America, she had a hard time telling Americans apart. Other students were stunned: "But Americans look so different: different color hair, different facial characteristics...." She could understand what her fellow students were saying, but she said that, particularly with regard to the women, she just thought "they were all beautiful. But I couldn't tell them apart."

My grandson, who lives in Kansas, had his own solution to racial distinctions. (Just to give some background, his mother is "white" and his father is Salvadoran.) He's five, and came home from kindergarten discussing a "black boy" in his class. His mother, ever the sensitive person, said there was no need to refer to a child by the color of his skin. He asked how he should describe the other child. His mom said, "Well, just because his skin is a different color, you don't need to say that. Just use his name." He seemed to mull this over, and after a couple of days, he said, "Mom, you know how I shouldn't call a kid 'black'? Well, I just figured out what I should call him: 'A kid whose skin is a different color.' " Our daughter wasn't exactly thrilled with that distinction, so she pointed out that if skin color seemed so important, "How would you describe Daddy?" "Hmmmm..." said the budding diplomat. "I dunno."

I guess one social solution per day is all that a five-year-old can handle.

That vaccination debate

Thursday, January 20, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Nichole Metallic, a student in my Granite State College online social psychology class, posted this when we were discussing the belief that many people still have, that vaccines cause autism. We've had an interesting time examining how Andrew Wakefield's work came to convince many people of this. His work has been completely discredited, but some people are still afraid to vaccinate their children. Nichole gave me permission to put her insightful post:

My son will be three in March and I have been conflicted about this topic since I was pregnant. I have given him all of the required vaccinations because I felt that my fear of him contracting something that he hasn't been vaccinated for is greater than my fear of the actual vaccination. When sharing my concerns with my son's doctor he shared a metaphor with me that helped make up my mind about whether or not I was going to give my son the vaccinations.

Imagine you are driving down a dark highway at night. You decide to turn your headlights off, but with the lights from all the other cars on the highway you can still see where you are going. One, then two more cars decide to turn their lights off as well. It's becoming harder to see the road but you can still see. But when everyone turns their head lights off - no one can see where they are going and the highway becomes a mess.

Nichole

"No Worries"

Wednesday, January 19, 2011 by Beth Benoit

"No worries." I love that expression. Two of our daughters spent semesters in Australia back in the 90's, and both came back with that expression. Now it seems like you hear it a lot. (What a nice import!)

It's interesting that we often think of a vacation as a time of "no worries." Yet, our vacations often bring out our own worries, anxieties, stress points, etc., so they sometimes fall short of our pre-vacation dreams. We study the topic of stress a lot in our psychology courses at Granite State College...

Just for fun, I did some research to find out different expressions (and in different languages) that essentially mean "no worries." Here are a few: in French, "Sans Souci"; in Italian: nessuna preoccupazione (I love that one...sounds like "nothing to preoccupy"!); in German, keine Sorgen; in Spanish, no so preocupe.

Okay, I cheated, here's an amazing website that translated that phrase into 24 languages: http://www.howtosayin.com/no+worries.html

At our house, we have a mosaic that I had made for my husband's birthday one year by Matthew Fallon, a wonderful artist who also made a beautiful stained glass panel for the Chelmsford Public Library, in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. (Matthew's two sisters used to babysit for our children.) Here's the panel in Chelmsford's library, which shows a wonderful pictorial history of Chelmsford, where our family lived for 24 years:

Matthew Fallon's stained glass panel at Chelmsford Public Library

And here's the mosaic Matthew made for us:

The Latin translates loosely to, "Leave your troubles at the door." Sort of a Latin take on "no worries"!

So, geen zorgen. (That's Dutch. I like that one!) Oh, and you can even take courses in American Sign Language at our Claremont campus.

"If you only take one course..."

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 by Beth Benoit

A colleague of mine, Dr. Claudia Stanny, who's a psychology professor at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida, was telling how, when she was in college, she didn't really know what to do when she "grew up." At that college, she was required to take one psychology course for her general education requirements. So she bought a little booklet with comments from students about the professors. (These days, those lists are all online!)

She was looking through the booklet and found this comment about one of the courses: "...if you only take one psychology course here, take this one with this professor." So she did. And the rest, as they say, is history. She changed her major to psychology and now is a professor.

How wonderful if every single person who ever takes a course - in high school, in college, online or in a classroom, could look back and recall that one special course!

Inspiration is so important to human beings, and finding - sometimes stumbling across - something that changes your life...well, it might not get any better than that!

At Granite State College, we want every one of our students to have a life-changing experience. We offer many different courses and areas of study. You'll have an advisor who will guide you through required courses, courses in your major, and some extras. If you're not sure what you want to do "when you grow up," your advisor can help you with looking at different areas that might interest you.

And maybe you'll be lucky enough to look back one day and say that your college experience changed your life!

Ant farms, students and curiosity

Sunday, January 9, 2011 by Beth Benoit

Although the purpose of this blog isn't to promote products - even if they ARE educational toys! - I can't resist writing about the ant farm we got for two of our grandchildren that may go down in history as the first thing to distract them from video games! It actually lights up and has a gel that the ants appear to eat and dig their tunnels in as well. Our daughter loves it so much she goes into the room where the farm is lit up, to read. And she talked me into getting one for my office too.

Here it is, though this doesn't show how it lights up, which is especially cool!

What got my brain going was thinking how we've always compared hard workers to ants. Remember the Aesop fable when you were a kid about "The Grasshopper and the Ant"? The grasshopper has a "what, me worry?" attitude toward life (which Walt Disney made into a wonderful song in the 1934 cartoon that goes like this: "Oh, the world owes me a living..."). He's disdainful of the ant who just keeps plodding along and works hard to get the job done of preparing for winter. The climax of the story, of course, is that winter comes, and the grasshopper is in trouble because he's not prepared, so he learns a lesson from the ant. (In the Disney version, the ant kindly helps the grasshopper. I'll bet in Aesop's version though, that the grasshopper froze to death!)

Some of my students have told me that when they were in high school, they couldn't wait to graduate and "get out into the real world." Alas, after a few years (or even decades) in the real world, they realized that a high school diploma wasn't going to get them where they wanted to go. Sometimes they just wanted to feel more educated. Sometimes they realized they needed further training to achieve a goal they'd decided was worthwhile. But always, the lure of a diploma got them started. Many of them sign up for regular classes at Granite State College, and some sign up for adult online courses. We even have accelerated undergraduate courses, so you can complete some courses in as little as five weeks. (This is hardly the easy way out, though, because you're taking a full college course in that short time! But for some, it's a blessing to be able to squeeze in a course in less time than a regular college course.)

So I can't resist trying to make my readers decide whether they want to be a grasshopper or an ant...at least, metaphorically!

Meanwhile, I'll write again when my ants arrive in their heated package. (I kid you not - that's how they can mail them in the winter!) Now wouldn't the grasshopper have loved that?

How important is memory?

Sunday, January 2, 2011 by Beth Benoit

I watched a "60 Minutes" episode recently, where a half dozen people who have "superior autobiographical memory" were interviewed. (The group included Marilu Henner, whom I remember fondly from a sitcom called "Taxi.") The segment was called "The Gift of Endless Memory," and Leslie Stahl interviewed five people who didn't have just "great" memories. They could remember everything that had ever happened to them, and when. Given any date, each could remember tiny details of the day, and of course, the interviewers made certain to verify these memories.

The researcher involved, Dr. James McGaugh, is a professor of neurobiology at the University of California Irvine, and he's a well-known expert on memory. He would ask these subjects (there are six known in the world), what would ordinarily be difficult or impossible for an ordinary person to recall, but could be verified by records, such as which days of a month twenty years ago, that it rained. When they showed one subject being questioned about the weather twenty years ago, she not only recalled which days it rained, but the weather for the days before!

Psychology courses often delve into how memory works. At Granite State College we have a lot of psychology courses and behavioral science classes, both online and classroom courses (the classroom courses take place in one of our nine NH state college campuses), including some we call "five-week intensives," that are accelerated courses. You'll read a lot, and become immersed in your subject, but at the end of five weeks, you'll be impressed with yourself, to realize that you've completed a whole college course! And the only shortcut is the length of time it took to finish the course. You'll still be learning the same things you'd learn in a full-length course! (But we can't promise that, like the people I've described, you'll remember everything for as long as you live!!!)

At Granite State College, we find ourselves emphasizing "adult learning," but once you finish high school, it's true that all college learning is "adult learning." And our learners range from just out of high school to senior citizens! (The oldest student I've had so far was 71 years "young" and the youngest was 17!)

Oh, and back to that fascinating segment on "60 Minutes": I loved when Marilu Henner said, "You know what I love? I love when people get so flattered, Like they go, 'Wow, I must've really made an impression on you.' And I go, 'No, no, believe me - I remember everything' '" And the fact that these people seem to have just a little bit of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder): they like to keep things in order and to collect things.

But the thing that's also stuck in my mind over the last week is that of the five subjects on the show, only one - Marilu Henner - had ever been married. (And she'd been married three times.) Is it possible that being able to remember everything (including arguments and hurt feelings) might make a long-term relationship more tenuous? Maybe it's important for our social "grease" to be able to actually forget details. (Ah, that's something that I should bring up in Social Psychology course, one of the online adult education classes that's coming up!)

So, I'm wondering if maybe that not-so-great memory of mine may have contributed to the longevity of my marriage. (We just celebrated our 42nd anniversary.) Well, there certainly aren't any proven "magic pills," but you never know...

Here's a link if you want to watch the "60 Minutes" segment.

Favorite Places

Sunday, December 19, 2010 by Beth Benoit

I love to travel, and was recently asked by a friend, what was my favorite place? That was almost as hard as those "ice breaker" questions like, "What was your most embarrassing moment?" (I'm sure I've been embarrassed plenty of times in my life, but I can never seem to drum up any of them on the spot. Maybe it's the plus of being forgetful?)

Anyhow, quite a few came to mind: Aarhus, Denmark is one (in Danish, it's written like this, with only one "": Århus); Helsinki, Finland is another; and I can't forget Lucerne, Switzerland...oh, the list is favorites is a long one.

Here's a cool thing I saw in Arhus:

And because this is a blog about adult education, going back to college and adult education, I also got to thinking about how deciding to go to college is kind of like planning a trip. In this age of the Internet, most of us would look for information about the area we're considering, check out how much it costs to get there, and other pre-travel information designed to make us feel we're in control. At least a little bit.

Trips never have any guarantees, of course. You cross your fingers and take the precautions that ring in your ear, like not walking alone at night, keeping your wallet in an inside pocket, etc.

But then, going back to school doesn't come with any guarantees either. Except for these: You should be able to expect to be challenged and have your horizons broadened. You should anticipate that you'll learn new things, and in ways you never imagined you could. You'll find all of these, and more, if you make the trip to Granite State College's website!