As a child I read Cheaper by the Dozen and fell in love with efficiency and best practices although I did not know them by those names yet.
The books Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes (written by their children Ernestine and Frank Jr.) tell the story of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s family life with twelve children, and describe how they applied their interest in time and motion study to the organization and daily activities of such a large family. Both books were later made into feature films. Make sure to look for the Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy version which is true to the original books!
Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr. (July 7, 1868 – June 14, 1924) was an American engineer, consultant and author, an early advocate of scientific management and a pioneer of time and motion study, he got his start analyzing the motions in brick laying.
Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth (May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist and industrial engineer. One of the first working female engineers holding a Ph.D., she is held to be the first true industrial/organizational psychologist.
Both Frank and Lillian were industrial engineers and efficiency experts who contributed to the study of industrial engineering in fields such as motion study and human factors.
Excerpted from Wikipedia
There were several examples that might be mistaken for multi-tasking in Cheaper by the Dozen but are really Time Slicing. I love these two particular examples: French and German lessons on phonograph while bathing and Morse code painted on the summer cottage’s bathroom walls.
It’s like reading the newspaper or listening to a podcast while you commute. Partly to relieve the tedium but mostly because you have a block of otherwise uninterrupted time that you are able to focus on something.
Tomorrow our students will be asked to turn over their cell phones before they enter the school. We did it last week during standardized testing and it worked well enough to inspire our administration to continue the practice until the end of the year.
At the beginning of the school year I distributed this letter to parents and students alike:
About: Presence and Mindfulness
Why can’t I have my phone on my desk?
Students in the 21st Century have grown up with technology and many find it difficult to focus on the moment because of the distractions from their technology.
Learning happens when students are fully engaged in the topic, participating in class discussions, and connecting the class material to their lives!
Learning requires students to be present and mindful. Students are less likely to be distracted when they put away their phone!
Students have been sitting in class wearing earbuds, watching a video on one screen, participating in social media on another screen and telling me that they are doing my work.
When these students complained about the decision to continue to collect phones after testing was completed they did not accept that their persistent use of cellphone in class was the reason for the decision.
Clicking <play> to listen to music while you work is not the same as reading and replying to text messages and/or viewing videos “while working”. I know plenty of people who can chew gum and walk at the same time, but doing classwork requires more brain power than either chewing gum or walking. As I wrote in my letter to students and parents at the beginning of the year, “Learning happens when students are fully engaged in the topic…[and] requires students to be present and mindful.”
Christine Heinicke 