Tag Archives: education

Depth not Balance

Leave a comment

Oftentimes people go wrong. But not wrong in the sense that they should have gone north but they went south, they should’ve voted liberal but they voted conservative (or vice versa). Wrong in the sense of just slightly off the mark. The “you’re on to something, but that’s not… quite… it” kind of go wrong. 

Today (it seems more than ever) people argue points on history, culture, society, etc., and all too commonly think the other side just “doesn’t see” the obvious; the other side doesn’t think things through; the other side refuses to look at the facts.  

The seeming problem? People live in echo-chambers. People only look at one side of the issue. The idea is that by only exposing yourself to one side of the argument, you are bound to be influenced by that side only. Hence the call to be balanced, look at arguments from both sides and search to find objective, authoritative, fact-checked, science-based, peer-reviewed sources. In a world of Aristotle’s ethos, logos, and pathos, we focus all our might on the ethos. 

This is one of those times when we are on to something, but that’s not… quite… it.  

I’ve also thought our contentiousness today stemmed from not making an earnest effort to determine the best arguments from the other side. I thought that everyone needs to engage in more antilogy: on Monday argue as best you possibly can your case on the issue, and then on Tuesday argue as best as you possibly can the opposing view on the issue. And while I still think this is a great exercise (when done in earnest), it is missing the essential. 

I’ve taught literature, piano, and philosophy for many years, but just recently I also started teaching history, government, and economics, courses more likely to bring up hot-button topics of the day. The difference in these courses is that students tend to have strong views on issues that they hold both confidently and passionately. And while it is true that when I ask a student for the best possible arguments for the other side they rarely have anything worthwhile to say (even after time to research), this isn’t where they really go wrong. My big hint was that, in truth, they don’t have much worthwhile to say about the point they passionately endorse either.

The problem is the depth of their dig for knowledge, not their balance in the digging. As a new history teacher, I’ve had to do a lot of studying myself. I’m finding that you can spend nearly all your time studying an event or era, and each hour of study fills out your knowledge of that era, gives you evidence to think about things you hadn’t thought of before, and generally leads you to think that the common narratives on both sides are often simple caricatures and just generally uninformed. 

What I think tends to happen is that if people are concerned about an issue (usually because they already have a strong opinion and to some degree it is being challenged), they dig for information and arguments, but as soon as they find arguments and evidence that support their sensibilities (and that rebuke the challenge), they stop. If they hear of new challenges, they’ll look for more evidence or arguments that support their beliefs, but in the end they are not actually looking for new information so that they can be more thoroughly informed, they are looking to have the superior argument over the people they disagree with. They use the evidence they find like the drunk man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than illumination. (And high school writing encourages this: “Back up the main idea of the paragraph with three supporting facts.”) And of course, when they find enough information to counter the imagined “other side,” they stop. 

In short, operating inside any particular group of ideas (one-sided, biased, or “authoritative”) with a strong sense of discovery and understanding, discovery and understanding of what is true so that you can become better informed, will lead to better results (and a less contentious attitude). And of course you will be critical of your sources. The discovery orientation encompasses judging your sources and looking in different places for information. That’s what people genuinely looking for truth and understanding do. The problem isn’t that you don’t see the “other side’s arguments.” The problem is that you don’t look deeply for what is true. It’s entirely possible that you may know the typical arguments of the day, of both sides even, but you still don’t actually know what the heck you are talking about. That’s the problem.

Don’t Fear the STAAR

Leave a comment

What is a test? It’s supposed to be an assessment. It’s a moment designed to tell you, “This is where you are in your educational development.” (Admittedly, a multiple-choice test isn’t a very good assessment; among other problems, there is a 25% margin of error when the student has no knowledge of the question. But making the test a better assessment is a different article.)

Assessments are helpful for a very important rule in pedagogy, hierarchy. Or, as I like to say it, “Meeting the student where he is.” As an educator, you need to find the place where the student’s knowledge meets his ignorance, and teach there. If the student hasn’t mastered addition and subtraction, don’t teach him multiplication. If he can’t read Green Eggs and Ham, don’t start studying Crime and Punishment. A good assessment can help you find out where the student is on the subject’s ladder of knowledge so you can best help him get to the next higher rung.

The problem of testing is not so much the test itself, but rather how schools and teachers “prepare” for the test. Oftentimes this test prep involves simply repeatedly working through sample tests. This makes two pedagogical errors: 

The first error involves the very thing the test is supposed to help you with, hierarchy. If the student is being tested on multiplication and does not understand addition, repeatedly working through sample test multiplication problems is a bad strategy. If the student reads at the level of Dr. Seuss, repeatedly asking comprehension questions from sample test passages written at the level of Dostoyevsky is not helpful. In both cases, the truth that an individual’s current knowledge is built upon more fundamental knowledge (hierarchy) is ignored.   

The second error is the very thing education itself is supposed to help you with, teleology, keeping in mind the goal of education. The goal of education is not discussed nearly enough, but for now let’s borrow a working goal from Horace Mann: “Education is to inspire the love of truth as the supremest good, and to clarify the vision of the intellect to discern it.” If this was our goal of education, then every course, every lesson, every word out of the teacher’s mouth should be a means to achieving that goal. Now if the assessment is measuring the student’s progress toward that goal (which it should), why are we engaging in test preparation as something distinct from regular teaching? Either the test is not gauging our progress toward that ultimate educational goal (which is bad), or our everyday teaching is not done with our ultimate educational goal in mind (which is criminal). 

So don’t fear the test. But beware of “test preparation.” My experience is that most educators are conscientious professionals. As such, they should be able to explain the following: If the test is assessing the normal educational process, why is test preparation so important and prevalent? And if they can’t, as professionals, they should welcome the discussion.   

Discussing Education: Why Bother?

Leave a comment

Come my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Why should you bother taking part in discussions on education? After all, there are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in your life; with so many legitimate options calling for your time (playing with your kids, making money, eating donuts, etc.) why should you take time to think about and discuss education?

Most people will agree that education is important, but so are many other things we don’t routinely talk about. Dentistry is important, for example. Improper dental care can result in terrible pain and costly bills. But by and large, we leave the talk about dentistry, to dentists. They are the experts. Not only that, Adam Smith taught us back in 1776 that this division of labor is a major driver in economic growth. So you could argue, if we appreciate superior goods and services, then we should not be discussing dentistry (at least, not instead of our own specialties). And of course, the field of education has specialists as well: teachers and administrators. Shouldn’t we treat our educators like our dentists, get out of their way, and let them do their jobs?    

Before we do, let’s look at another important specialist-driven discipline that we do talk about, obsessively: politics. (I know. You thought I was going to say football. That’s a good example too, but politics is more weighty.) Of course we feel duty-bound to discuss politics because in a democracy, we the people are an essential part of the political process. We have a sense that the identity of our country and all that that entails (freedom vs. tyranny, wealth vs. poverty, etc.) is largely dependent upon our role in the political process; hence in all things political, we discuss, we analyze, we argue, not so with dentistry. But apart from voting for school board members and bond elections, there is currently not the same kind of built-in responsibility for we the people in the education process. 

But there is another reason why we talk so obsessively about politics. We discuss, analyze, and argue politics because we have a firm conviction that government could be run better. Everytime we argue for a law, regulation, or politician, (or to repeal a law, regulation, or politician) we do so because we think politically there is great room for improvement. And this is my argument for why you should bother with education: There is great room for improvement.

People have endlessly argued this point. They compare American test scores to other countries, compare reading lists and curricula from today to 100 years ago, or note large gaps in the quality of education within the public school system itself. But I think there is a better way to make the room for improvement argument: piano lessons. 

I took piano lessons from the age of eight to the age of seventeen. I attended a private lesson once a week, usually for half an hour. Not the most diligent student, I probably averaged practicing thirty minutes a day, four to five days a week. By the time I was sixteen I was playing difficult repertoire (Beethoven piano sonatas, Chopin polonaises, etc.). These never failed to impress adults and friends alike. People spoke of my playing either in mystical terms (“God-given gifts”) or deterministic terms (“You must have it in your genes!”). And yet, my experience was that every student who put in the same amount of time and effort played pretty much the same caliber pieces and possessed roughly the same musical knowledge. In retrospect, the lack of variation in outcome seems pretty simple. The key factor doesn’t seem to be whether you have a gift from God or inherited genes from a piano-playing grandfather, but rather whether you put forth long-term effort. 

So what’s my argument? Ten years of thirty minutes a day, four to five times a week, produces consistently jaw-dropping ability and knowledge, creating in children incalculable pride, self esteem, and the belief that they can do incredible things with long-term effort. 

Schools have children for over ten years, five days a week, for roughly six hours a day. Six hours. Not thirty minutes, six hours. Just think of what education could be! Think of the knowledge and talents children could have. Indeed, there is great room for improvement. But rather than focus on what education currently lacks, be excited to think about what it could be. Think about it, and talk about it.  

My plan is to continue to analyze and discuss education, what it could be, and what it should be. I hope you will too. When I think about what each individual is capable of, and how everything the individual does could be done better with more knowledge and deeper, clearer thinking, I know it will be worth the bother.   

Michael Saenz, Marble Falls, TX

 (Education today doesn’t get near the attention, thought, and discussion in our society that it should. As a consequence, both educators, students, and parents are shortchanged. This is the first of many essays designed to remedy this problem by encouraging discussions about what education is, what it could be, and what it should be, at mikesaenz.org.)

Writing as Communication versus Writing as Thinking

Leave a comment

What is writing? Or, what is the purpose of writing? Communicating is a common answer, and certainly writing is a way to communicate. But I think this answer is making an error in fundamentality. Fundamentally, writing is thinking, not communicating. I’ll make the case for writing as thinking later, but first let’s look at the problem with the writing as communicating view.

To be fair, most people will not completely divorce thinking from the writing process. After all, what does writing communicate? Thoughts. But saying writing is “communicating thoughts” implies that the thoughts are already formed. Are they? Before you write them down? I don’t think so. Maybe, just maybe, the first sentence is a thought already formed, but succeeding sentences are logically built upon the preceding sentences and must be generated. They are not “already in the mind of the student.” Students get “stuck” because they don’t already have the succeeding thought. They must generate the thought. Writing is fundamentally thinking.

In part, students know this is true. I suspect that they are not embarrassed primarily because they might get grammar wrong (they don’t mind getting things wrong in other subjects nearly as much); they are embarrassed because deep down they know the importance of thinking, and they are afraid to have their thoughts on display. A critique of their writing is a critique of their mind and soul, not a critique of their grammar and communication skills.

There are many important implications for the “writing as thinking” view. If you can convince the student that thinking is man’s distinctive and fundamental means of survival, flourishing, and happiness, then the “writing as thinking” view makes writing a life-promoting activity for the writer regardless of any opportunities or requirements he may or may not have to write as an adult. It’s not about the person you are communicating with; it’s about your ability to think deeply and clearly so that you can make better decisions in life, flourish, and be happy.

Why do we have rules of grammar? The communication view at best will say that the rules are for the sake of clarity in communication (leaving open the critique that “You knew what I meant”). A worse explanation is the notion that “people will think you are ignorant” because you make mistakes in grammar. But the “writing as thinking” view sees the rules of grammar as rules that create, not just clarity in communication, but clarity in thinking. This view gives a much more personally important purpose to grammar.

To more positively make the case for the thinking view, we need to introspect on the activity that is thinking. In thinking, we ask ourselves (our subconscious) questions. Sometimes an answer “comes to us.” Unless the answer is obviously what we are looking for, we then usually analyze that answer by asking another question, “Is that right? Or, is there a better answer?” If we are unhappy with the answer, or we get no answer, we think of a different question to ask in hopes of getting a different answer. Now introspect on the writing process. Is this not a constant process of asking yourself questions; analyzing the answers; seeing how they fit with the facts, your other points, and your overall point; then realizing you need to ask better questions and going through the process all over again? And we are anxious to get it right and do it well, not so we are understood, but so we are understood. The working of our mind is on display. It is a display of our thinking at its most refined, most exposed, and most stylized frozen in time.

What about the view that we do the thinking first, by pre-writing activities (brainstorming), that the generating of ideas is the first part of the writing process? Is the rest of the writing process fundamentally about communicating (i.e. the thinking is primarily for the purpose of communicating clearly and effectively)? I still don’t think so. The result of the prewriting process is usually at best an outline. When converting the outline into an essay, the writer is not simply asking himself if his idea is clear to his audience; he is fundamentally asking himself if the idea is clear, period. And not just clear, but relevant to the topic, inventive, factually true, consistent with his other ideas. In essence, the standard for good writing is good thinking, not good communicating. The average reader will find JK Rowling’s ideas more understandable and clear than Victor Hugo’s ideas. But Victor Hugo is rightfully considered a better writer because, while his writing takes much more effort to understand, his writing is more profound, more inventive, and addresses more complicated ideas. He does better thinking.

In short, treating writing as fundamentally communicating rather than thinking, is not giving the act of writing its proper due. It makes the activity of writing a harder sell to students (and teachers and administrators), and more importantly, it overlooks the life-enhancing personal value that writing can have for an individual, whether he writes to communicate for a living or if his writing never gets read by a single soul. Having explicit, clear, integrated, deep, and independent thoughts is clearly beneficial to an individual’s decision making, flourishing, and happiness; writing is the way to generate those thoughts.

Test Data and Objectivity

Leave a comment

According to Leonard Peikoff in his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand:

To be ‘objective in one’s conceptual activities is volitionally to adhere to reality by following certain rules of method, a method based on facts and appropriate to man’s form of cognition.

My understanding of objectivity is that it is a realization that knowledge is an interaction between reality and man’s consciousness. The rub is that in any act of cognition, you need to take into account at least two identities–the relevant fact(s) you are looking at, and the nature of your consciousness.

When thinking on the nature of one’s consciousness, there is much to consider: consciousness is an integrating mechanism (it should integrate facts without contradiction, i.e. use logic), consciousness needs to take into account context and hierarchy, and consciousness must take into account purpose.

So, how does one objectively look at standardized test data? First one must ask, what are the relevant facts to look at? It turns out, it is more than just “the data.”

  • The nature of the test (For example: Since the test is multiple choice, a student can have no clue about the knowledge assessed, and still have a 25% chance of demonstrating that he does indeed have the knowledge assessed. Also, the “passing” grades for these tests are all in the 40-50% range, bringing into question their efficacy as assessments.)
  • The nature of the students (For example: My coworker found that the students on our campus are much more likely to miss the last 5-10 questions on the test, regardless of the subject. This points to a fact about our students that we already knew–they have poor cognitive endurance.)
  • Our purpose as educators (What is the result we are after as educators? Is it a student who does well on the assessment? Or, is it a critically thinking, productive, confident, and happy young adult with a reverence for knowledge? What is the relationship between these two options? Does one lead to or encompass the other?)

Dr. Peikoff also mentions one usage of the term “objective” in common use today that I think is telling:

People often speak of “objective reality.” In this usage, which is harmless, ‘objective’ means “independent of consciousness.”

But here is where I think harm is indeed done. Objectivity for most people is the goal, but since they see objectivity as meaning “independent of consciousness,” they do the exact opposite of what objectivity requires. Instead of using their consciousness more by making sure to apply it to all the relevant factors, they see it as a distorting factor and actually make a point to use it less.

This explains the popularity of any kind of test that can be transferred into a number. The number is considered objective, because no conscious effort was required to generate the number. Whereas an essay, a situation in which the student could more fully display what he does or doesn’t know, is considered not objective because the assessment of an essay requires an act of consciousness to assess it.

Of course, the tests, in the name of objectivity, are almost all multiple choice; and in the name of objectivity, the various numbers the tests generate will be debated and will somehow generate school policy. At this stage of our public school culture, the process is unavoidable. Let’s just make the effort to honestly and rigorously analyze all the relevant factors and keep the process as truly objective as possible.

Sisyphists and Principles in Education

Leave a comment

According to economist Frederic Bastiat in his essay “Effort and Result,” there is always a ratio between an effort employed and a result obtained. As expected, people in most tasks try to increase their results while minimizing their efforts. This is what Bastiat calls progress. However, in some cases, people do the opposite. Their approach to a task causes an increase in effort, with a simultaneous decrease in the result. To the extent that people do this, Bastiat calls them sisyphists, since if they were entirely consistent and succeeded in creating a maximum effort with zero results, they would be like poor Sisyphus, engaging in a life of toil that produces no benefits.

Bastiat, being an economist, was referring to sisyphists in the realm of economic policy, usually advocates of a protectionist policy, those who put artificial obstacles like tariffs in the way of producers and consumers. While this is certainly a relevant discussion to have today (see President Trump’s views on free trade), my concern, being an educator, is the presence of sisyphism in education.

During this time of the summer, the more conscientious school districts are looking forward to the upcoming school year, discussing appropriate strategies to serve their students best. Sadly, for most, this will be based on a break down of the school’s/district’s state test data. Why sadly?

There are many problems with state testing data, but that’s for another post, and not really relevant here. Assume that the data is good and reasonably accurate if you like. Let’s also assume that the data indicates that students in the district are underperforming on a certain test, or even a certain part of a test, since each test is broken down into multiple categories. Now what? The answer will be something like, “We need to teach the material assessed by that part of the test better, or longer, or differently.” Why? “Because the students need to improve their scores on that part of the test.”

But notice, where is our attention?  Is it on how we can best spend our time with the student so that he has the knowledge and reasoning capacity to flourish as an adult? Is it on how we can develop a culture of excellence in our classrooms, a culture whose fundamental is students and teachers taking their learning and creating seriously? Is it on how to best foster intellectual independence in our students? In our teachers? While it could be the case that an analysis of state test data could lead to these fundamental questions, I suspect this rarely, if ever, happens. And yet, the answer to these fundamental questions is the real driver of a school’s success. So why not start there? After all, addressing these fundamental questions is difficult and time-consuming. Instead, it appears that a primary purpose of the organization is using test data to drive our ability to increase test scores. This is an obstacle. We are becoming sisyphists.

Not only is the emphasis on test data an obstacle, it is a red herring. Can you imagine an honest, conscientious staff at a school thinking they had successfully created a culture of excellence and intellectual independence amongst themselves and their students, such that students left the school as beneficiaries of their education (not products), ready to flourish intellectually as an adult, and yet were proved wrong by test scores? I can’t. If we are worth anything as educators, a focus on test scores will only tell us something we should already know (that in some area we need improvement), or allow us to evade our poor job if by chance the test scores are acceptable, which is entirely possible considering what counts for passing on these tests. In both cases, it diverts our focus away from a principled approach to education. Our attention will be directed away from how to address those fundamental questions that truly determine the success of a school. We will have hampered our ability to create legitimate educational results because our focus will be on something other than proper goals.

Bastiat saw sisyphists as people who needlessly (even purposefully) create obstacles, but this formulation misses the root cause. What sisyphists do is change the goal of an organization (or emphasize a contrary or derivative goal). To those who still cling to the old goal, the steps to the new goal seem like obstacles which increase effort and minimize results. So, if we are not going to be sisyphists in education, we need to make clear our goals as educators and ruthlessly integrate all that we do to the service of that goal. So, let’s do it. Is our goal to be educators whose vision is driven by state test data—the test data-driven approach with a change in that data the implicit goal? Or, is it the explicit goal of helping foster knowledgeable, intellectually independent thinkers who can flourish and be happy as adults—the principled approach?

Vico helps “Develop the Intellect”

Image result for giambattista vico study methods

In my last blog post, I critiqued the fragmentation of knowledge in our schools and promised another post that would better answer what it means to “develop the intellect.” This is part one in my attempt to fulfill that promise.

In 1708, the humanist philosopher and rhetorician, Giambattista Vico, wrote the book, On the Study Methods of Our Time. I think if there should ever be such a thing as a teacher training course (and that’s a big “if”), this book should be required reading.  In the book, Vico says,

“…(the) capacity to perceive the analogies existing between matters lying far apart and, apparently, most dissimilar. It is this capacity which constitutes the source and principle of all ingenious, acute, and brilliant forms of expression.”

Connecting things “far apart and, apparently, most dissimilar.” Notice that Vico’s point is backed up by near universal teacher experience. When does the teacher get most excited? When a student finally gets the lesson? I don’t think so. I think it is when the student makes a connection from the lesson that the teacher never thought of; that’s when he really gets excited!

That teachers and Vico both get excited about these kinds of connections make sense. Surely “developing the intellect” does not just mean having a lot of knowledge, but rather being able to do something with that knowledge, namely, making a connection that adds to the previous knowledge held. Aristotle addresses this early on in his Topics.

“Now reasoning is an argument in which, certain things being laid down, something other than these necessarily comes about through them.”

So as a teacher, you teach the student A and B. Hopefully the student understands A and B, but more importantly, can the student come up with a C? That derivation of C is the challenge of the educator because that’s real reasoning by the student. That’s an intellect being trained. And if Vico is correct, (and I think he is) the farther away C is from A and B, the more impressive the accomplishment. (Sadly, this derivation of a far away C is rarely encouraged in our schools today.)

Why is this kind of thinking so important? Because the individual, in order to survive and flourish, must be a value creator. The individual must take what is given (and A and B), and create something better (a C). Then, he can enjoy the benefits of the better thing he produced, or he can trade it with others and enjoy the values that others have created. Developing the intellect to do this kind of thing is what I call, “getting ready for adult life.”

Notice, this success is not just on an individual level; it is the story of mankind’s success to date. Mankind was given raw nature: rocks of various kinds, trees, bushes, dirt, other animals, etc. From these materials, mankind has created things so “far apart and apparently most dissimilar” that most people in history would consider them magical — things like airplanes, laptops, air-conditioning, space ships, etc. These are the products of the value creator mentality.

So developing the intellect involves reasoning, getting a C from an A and a B; and it involves analogical thinking, “perceiving analogies existing between matters lying far apart and apparently most dissimilar.” That gives a rough idea of what a developed intellect is, but how does one promote such a thing in education? That is the subject of the next post.

“When am I ever going to use this?”

IMG_3952

As an educator, there are some questions from students that should just not be answered. “When am I ever going to use this?” is one of those questions.  Sadly, many teachers make the mistake of trying to give an answer, (note image of the poster above from a classroom in my school) and in doing so they undermine the very notion of education itself.

“When am I ever going to use this?” contains a dangerous premise about the nature of education. It implies that in life, various situations will arise in which a particular skill or a particular piece of knowledge will come in handy, and it is the job of education to provide you with that knowledge or skill ahead of time when you are young, so you will be ready when the need arises as an adult.

The tiniest bit of reflection upon this idea will either cause disbelief in the premise, or a belief in the utter uselessness in the idea of education itself.  Sadly, I think most people today default to the latter.

Let’s reflect upon the data in our own minds to illustrate this point. Suppose you are a relatively successful, forty-something adult. What percentage of facts learned in high school have you used to date? The difference between meiosis and mitosis? The symbolism in “The Minister’s Black Veil”? The significance of The Battle of Hastings? Ok. Maybe not so many particular facts, but what about particular skills? How to measure a flagpole using only its shadow and trigonometry? Factoring trinomials? Determining the momentum of a moving object? Formatting a works cited page and parenthetical citations? Depending on your interests, you could have used some of these, but for each skill used, most of us can think of dozens not used. So then, what’s the point of education? Is most of it just useless knowledge and skills, never used, and justifiably forgotten?

Benjamin Franklin tells a story that helps illuminate the nature of education. He tells of a time when the state of Virginia offered to educate six young men from six Native American tribes. The tribal leaders said thanks, but no thanks. In explanation, they told of a previous time when some of their young men were taught at universities in another colony. These young men came back poor hunters, poor warriors, unable to survive in the forest, and unable to speak the language properly. In short, they were considered useless, uneducated. Summing up his story, Franklin says that in the colonies, education was for developing the intellect, while for the natives, education was for survival.

In short, the “When am I ever going to use this?” mentality is using the natives’ “survival” view of education. According to this view, there are a certain number of tasks a person must be able to accomplish in life in order to survive, and education is to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to accomplish them. But there is an alternative to this mentality, the colonists’ “developing the intellect” view. Detailing what “developing the intellect” consists of is a topic for another post, but the advantageous results of developing the intellect are easy to see. I live in Texas, and while driving across the state this week I observed large fields of trees and grass, seemingly untouched by man. Now imagine standing in the middle of that field, and using just the materials present, creating a cell phone, or an air-conditioned car, or even the fancy thermos that somehow keeps my ice water cold for over 24 hours. The list could go on. How do you look out at the field of grass, cactus, weeds, trees, dirt, and rock, and develop paper and ink, plastic containers, rubber tires, centrifuges, airplanes, watches, and laser pointers? For most of these things, I don’t particularly know; but I do fundamentally know that it is done with an intellect developed a certain way, and not with an intellect taught only things that answer the question “When am I ever going to use this?”