Newsletter
Volume 28 | 2005 | Number 1
Love from Og
Hi to my friends, colleagues and associates:
As all 82 year old scientists and other rational persons know, something – we don’t know what - is going to get us fairly soon. We live and work with a cloud over our shoulders; a feeling I associate with flying through flak fields in a WWII bomber.
It feels like the future is governed almost entirely by chance. Most of us do not know the terminal illnesses of our relatives, nor do we know the extent of our exposure to toxins. Bette Davis said, “Old age is not for sissies,” and I add that old age is also a crap shoot – something – don’t know when, where, what, or how- is going to kill us.
I became ill in August with what we thought was an irritated gall bladder. It was removed, in what was to be a simple, 30-minute, laparoscopic operation at the beginning of September. But, during the surgery, which lasted three and a half hours, my surgeon confirmed that I have bile duct (cholangiocarcinoma) cancer. It is not as rapid growing as pancreatic cancer cells, but much more metastatic and pervasive, rare (1/1000), and common in Asian populations. It has spread to my liver and even interferes with the clotting of my blood.
I am a patient in the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) in Kansas City, where I came from Boston in 1965 to be professor of educational research in the Children’s Rehabilitation Unit, Department of Pediatrics. KUMC is an excellent institution and I have come full circle here. I am well cared for by my oncologist who was a trainee in 1967 when I spoke to KU Med interns and residents about the myth of symptom substitution. I offered a $500 reward for every case of symptom substitution brought to me because I wanted to research each real case of symptom substitution I could find.
I could find no detailed cases described in recent published books or journal articles. It appeared that “symptom substitution” functioned as a warning to stop people from directly and rapidly removing nail biting, nose picking, leg jerking, smoking, excess coffee drinking, and even belching and farting.
While standing by my bedside for the first time and squeezing my knee; recognizing me, he exclaimed, “I remember you; you’re very controversial around here.” He said that after my scheduled lecture to all the KUMed interns and residents 37 years ago, the head of psychiatry held an emergency special meeting with them. He told them to ignore what I had said. My oncologist said most of his classmates still agreed with what I had told them after that meeting. Organic medicine still rejected Freudian myths.
Psychiatry at KUMed, Kansas Neurological Institute, Topeka VA, Kansas City VA, and most of the other hospitals in Kansas and Western Missouri was controlled by the deeply Freudian Menninger Clinic. It maintained its Freudian treatment to the bitter end, recently dying in bankruptcy. Sic transit Freud.
If I went through Kubler-Ross’ five stages, I did it in three seconds, and accepted my death as my final mission. My thoughts are of thankfulness for your friendship and loyalty and of rapid priority readjustment with Nancy for the time we have left together. I will not be with you to deliver my keynote at our ITPC in November in Chicago as planned. Nancy will be, and she will read you my keynote address. Nancy has retired and is with me constantly, sleeping in the hospital room along side my bed. She’s a superb caregiver and this has brought us closer together than ever.
Rather than cards or gifts, let me hear that you have chosen and are working on a small portion of our research questions that should be answered as soon as possible. I need nothing but your hard work for your clients and for standard celeration.
I have appointed Abigail Calkin my archivist and chair of Og’s Archives Committee. Abigail will have access to Behavior Research Company’s records and memorabilia from the birth of Precision Teaching and Standard Celeration in Kansas City. Title and copyrights will be held by the Ogden R. Lindsley Trust, Nancy Hughes, trustee. Abigail will be assisted by committee members and maybe by an intern or two from the archive masters program at Emporia State University, 60 miles southwest of Kansas City.
The other members of Og’s Archives Committee are Carl Binder, Dennis Edinger, John Eshleman, Michael Fabrizio, Steve Graff, Elizabeth Haughton, Matthew Israel, Kent Johnson, Carl Koenig, Harold Kunzlemann, Sarah Kyrklund, Sandra Luck, Malcolm Neely, Hank Pennypacker, Jesus Rosales, Clay Starlin, and Nancy Hughes (trustee, Ogden R. Lindsley Trust). These members were chosen for their unique knowledge, and possible documents, about specific issues, different aspects and different eras in the development of our Precision Teaching and Standard Celeration. The members are not the only ones who have made important contributions to our work.
Together we rescued frequency, which Grandpa Fred Skinner decried lost to behavior analysis when he wrote, “Goodbye My Lovely.” That is why I left Harvard Medical School and went to the University of Kansas Medical Center – to introduce frequency ahead of the behavior analytic false prophets. My strategic model was the Missoula, Montana, flame jumpers who started backfires to put out forest fires. I hoped when the ABA false prophets finally got to education they would run into frequency firmly established by us. In education you all know we battled percent correct as behavior management.
Surprisingly, we went on to discover celeration and the standard celeration chart. To frequency, Skinner’s extremely sensitive performance measure, we added celeration, the only sensitive standard learning measure. We proved even six year olds can chart their own educational and social pinpoints and can teach their first-grade classmates to do the same.
If you want to honor me personally start another chart, start a private school, or write a book. Remember to publish important findings in eight and a half by eleven books, rather than journal, form.
Don’t waste time on too many articles. Articles are counted; books, such as I have been unable to get written, COUNT. Use plain English, short sentences, active verbs, short one and two syllable words for our average educated six-year-old users. We do not want users to have to run to dictionaries to read our instructions. We want our users to know the meaning of all the words in our instructions and merely use the new words we coin for our discoveries. They should also be short, clear, and also already in the dictionary with just a few meanings.
With our discoveries, don’t waste time repeating, double checking, or publishing in academic journals. I spent almost no time checking the sensitivity and superiority of frequency as the best and final performance measure. We are not trying to be absolutely perfect. We are trying to race up a steep mountain of learning information that we have only just started to collect.
Stand on my shoulders as I stood on Fred Skinner’s shoulders. You see more big things from up here and you see further.
I love you all. Happy charting, As ever,
Og with Nancy