Belly Buttons, or, The Measure of Success

This post spurred on by the comment on the last post, but also developed around a concept I've been discussing with my classes today.

First of all, we all measure our workouts in different ways. Sometimes according to time or distance, perhaps by an RPE (rate of perceived exertion) on a scale of one to four or maybe one to ten. And I swear I have a heart rate monitor somewhere! I've even been wearing the watch part of it on my runs the past couple of months, before which I NEVER ran with a watch, so you can see I am already measuring my progress in measuring my workouts...

So, sweat is another way we can measure our output. Molly and I keep intending to weigh ourselves pre- and post-workout to monitor our water-weight loss. Don't know if she's ever followed through, but I only remember at inconvenient times such as now.

Perhaps more interesting than sweat quantity is sweat pattern. Like snowflakes, no two sweat patterns appear to be the same. I won't detail other people's patterns here, but don't think I haven't noticed! One identifying detail of my own pattern is that I seem to sweat two belly buttons. I can't figure out why this happens, but I get two perfect circles of sweat adjacent to each other right where my (one) navel is located. Hmmmm.

So the other part of my thinking occurs this way...
I have my students do some journal writing on different subjects to practice and develop their critical thinking skills. The idea is to move away from superficial pro/con summaries into a more complicated analysis of a given concept, attempting to understand and explain how it reflects, exemplifies, or influences our cultural values.

Earlier this week I had them respond to an article I had read about Gov. Mike Huckabee's institution of a "BMI report card" in Arkansas and recent legislation in the state senate to repeal it based on the reuted adverse affect on students' self-esteem. Rather than arguing for or against the state implementation of a BMI report, we wrote about and discussed the different elements of the piece. For example, several students thought, as is frequently reported, tat BMI is a measure of body fat. Other students had never heard or used the word "esteem" without a "self" in front of it. We talked about information as a starting point for analysis, eventually moving to solutions--both in terms of BMI reporting and in terms of writing the dreaded English 200 researched essay.

One of the conclusions I drew was that while BMI doesn't measure that much, the relationship among public education, BMI reporting, and self-esteem measures, in ways we can only begin to address, "our" cultural values in what I might describe as a leaky vessel.