Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sometimes and Always #6
I'm back to link up with Megan at Mackey Madness for the 6th week! Come and join the fun over at her sweet blog!
Sometimes - I can't help but let my little men sleep in the bed with me when their daddy is away.
Always - I never sleep very well when my husband is away and my kids are in the bed with me. I am either too worried about being alone in the house and being the only protector for my babies, or I am worried that if I fall asleep, I'll sleep too heavily and not hear if my children need me. When Eddie is here, he is definitely the lighter sleeper, and I have come to depend on him waking me up if needed. However, when he is away, I guess my mommy instinct kicks in and won't let me sleep as soundly.
Always (there's no sometimes for this one) - I am so glad when my husband gets home after being away for a night or two.
Sometimes - my boys can be a handful!
Always - I love the way they love each other!
Sometimes - I could lay and look at this precious face all night.
Always - I need my sleep!
Sometimes - law school classes are really boring.
Always - There is a class that really teaches you something shockingly profound and useful. Tonight, a professor for the UNC School of Government spoke to us about the difficult job judges have of making fair and just decisions when it is human nature to automatically process, stereotype, and allow bias to influence our decisions. Literally, our brains are made to function on "autopilot" so that we can react more quickly in dangerous situations for survival. We need to be aware of our biases so that we can make a conscious effort to override "autopilot" and actually base our decisions on careful thought. It was definitely an interesting and personally challenging lecture. I think we all need to realize and come to terms with our personal biases...we all have them and just need to work on overcoming them. If you are interested in learning more about your own personal biases that are built into your brain, you may want to go take the Implicit Association Test (IAT).
I had a little trouble coming up with these tonight in case you couldn't tell!
I woke up at 2 am because Elliott was fussing and almost rolled over Spencer when getting up. I had NO idea he had climbed into bed with us. I definitely sleep more soundly with Elliott than I did with Spencer at the same age.
ReplyDeleteYour lecture from tonight sounds fascinating. I don't think I could ever be a judge because I'm too quick to judge. Do you want to eventually be one? Because that might be our one and only difference!
Nope, you can chalk that up to another similarity! I don't think I could ever be a judge although this is an interesting class about how to achieve justice and fairness in the courts. Although I recognize that I do exhibit some personal biases, I actually found a lot of fault with that little test I posted. It seems like it actually "programs" your brain in the beginning and then forces you to change and do the opposite of that programming. Then, when you're brain is slower or can't adapt to the change, it chalks that up as being biased. Like if you take the race test, it asked me in the beginning what my ethnicity was (pretty much white or non-white) and then the test started by pairing good words with "European-American" faces on one side and bad words with "African-American" faces on the other side. Then, after you had done two rounds sorting the good words and "white" faces together, it changed and asked you to sort bad words with "white faces." I felt that was an error because it is like that game of rubbing your stomach and patting your head and then trying to change and pat your stomach and rub your head. The mind has trouble making change instantaneously and using that as a basis for "prejudice" is flawed, but I do recognize that we all do probably exhibit some biases and it is important to be aware of those biases and think carefully about our decisions and not decide too quickly to avoid making decisions that may be affected by those biases. He gave a lot of examples of how making rash decisions often lead to wrong answers...like those "simple" math problems that look so easy at first glance and tempt you to just jot down your first guess. "A baseball and bat cost $1.10 together. How much does the baseball cost if the bat cost $1 more than the ball." Your first guess is 10 cents but that would be incorrect because if the ball cost 10 cents then the bat would actually cost $1.10 and the total would be $1.20. So the actual answer is 5 cents! I got that one right, but it took me a while to analyze it. :-)
DeleteSherry,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the blog award! I'll do my post as soon as I can!!!! So excited!
~Tamara