Your child's learning may soon be "personalized" by a computer algorithm created by people who know more about ones and zeros than they do about human beings.

I just read another one of those stories that scare the crap out of me every time I see them. The headline on the latest article in Education Week: "How (and Why) Ed-Tech Companies Are Tracking Students' Feelings." A few hundred words into the story, you learn that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla are sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into "whole-child personalized learning." Oh, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have decided to team up with the Zuckerbergs. For all I know, Mark and Bill's wives are genuine sentient beings, but the two men are beta version androids, strong on smarts but weak on understanding of what makes humans human. They'd most likely fail the human/replicant test in Blade Runner.

Here's how the Orwellian world of computerized "personalized learning" works. A student uses, say, an online math learning program. The software keeps track of the student's every keystroke, pause, fast forward and rewind, and of course every right and wrong answer. If the program is sophisticated and invasive enough, it may record facial expressions and eye movements as well. The information is stored in an individual folder on the company server. The next time the student logs on, the software uses what it has "learned" about that child to personalize the lesson to the student's academic and emotional learning style.

Best case scenario: The lessons are better suited to individual students, increasing their levels of interest and comprehension.

Worst case scenario: As the student interacts with educational programs in a variety of subjects, and maybe plays a few games and takes a few fun quizzes ("Which do you like better, playing video games or playing sports?") as a reward for time spent or points earned, the software company amasses a growing file of psychometric data. Year by elementary school year the data accumulates, creating an intimate, multi-dimensional personality profile. Humans come and go, but computer data lives forever. During their school years, young people's data and psychometric analysis can be used to make them "better" students — more attentive and interested maybe, but also more compliant and conforming. For the rest of their lives, it can be sold to people who think they can gain monetarily, or politically, from knowing what individual buttons to push on millions of human beings to elicit the desired responses.

Big Data Is Watching You. And Evaluating You. And Manipulating You.

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As the deadline to vote is less than a week away, it's time to let us know who, what, and where you think is the Best of Tucson.

Our annual competition that determines the best yoga studios, dog parks, video game stores, donuts and drag queens is coming to a close on Sunday, June 17. So take a break from your Father's Day celebrations (also this Sunday, don't forget!) and let your voice be heard about your favorite things that make Tucson great.

There are two rounds of voting for Best of Tucson, the first of which is ending Sunday. This first round is your opportunity to nominate whoever and wherever you want for each category. After this round closes, we will determine the top five spots to be voted on again for the winner.

Before you get too excited about all these choices, there are a few rules to follow:

1. One ballot per person. We are checking IP addresses, so no trying to be sneaky!

2. Ballots must have your full name and email address or phone number. If they don't have this information, the ballots will be thrown out and your votes lost. The provided emails and phone numbers will be used ONLY for ballot-verificaiton purposes. Fake emails or phone numbers will result in thrown out ballots. Don't do it!

3. In order for your votes to count, you must vote in at least 30 categories. Don't have an opinion on 30 categories? Sounds like you need to get out and about in Tucson!

4. If you truly have no opinion in a category, please LEAVE IT BLANK.

5. Ballot-box stuffing is not aloud. You can do simple campaigning such as putting up a sign or linking our website to yours, but anything beyond that is forbidden and may result in disqualification. Any business or entry may be disqualified at the discretion of the editor. If you have questions or a tip about ballot-box stuffing, please email [email protected]. Thank you!

6. Please only vote for LOCAL institutions. Here at Tucson Local Media and the Tucson Weekly, we like to celebrate Tucson! Vote for your favorite mom 'n pop joints but not for any national chains. Votes for national chains will not be counted.

Having trouble logging in?

If you've ever voted for something on our website before, you have to type your name the exact same way you did the first time, or the system will not let you vote. Maybe last year you didn't capitalize your first name? Or perhaps you left off your last name? If you can't figure it out, please email our Web Editor Tirion Morris and she'll set you straight.

Happy voting!

 

Jordan Morgan received the news he’s waited his whole life to hear at a summer football camp at Northern Arizona University last weekend.

Morgan, who’s been a larger-than-life figure on the Marana Tigers’ offensive and defensive lines over the last two years, was gifted the opportunity to play the sport at its highest collegiate level.

The 6-foot-5-inch, 265-pound lineman—the younger brother of former Tiger and current Pima Aztec John Morgan—has the opportunity to continue his playing career, receiving an offer at the NAU camp to play for the University of Arizona.

Morgan’s good fortune came during the camp, when first-year offensive line coach Joe Gilbert pulled him aside, sending the rising senior into a state of euphoria.

“He told me that he was going to offer me a full ride scholarship to U of A, and I was speechless,” Morgan said. “It was pretty mind blowing. So yeah, it's a pretty big step forward for me.”

The Nick Moss Band Featuring Dennis Gruenling brought their powerful Chicago blues style to Tucson’s House of Bards Sunday evening, performing almost three hours for a crowd that warmed up as the show progressed.

The band is touring in celebration of their new album The High Cost of Low Living released in March as their first CD on Chicago’s famed Alligator Records. At Sunday’s show, the group impressed with their blend of technical musicianship and energetic showmanship.

Gruenling, in particular, energized the crowd with his wailing harmonica, swaying and dancing as he displayed the musical skill that’s earned him nationwide acclaim. His appearance — the patterned jacket, long hair, sunglasses indoors look— complimented his blues prowess.

The band's music is rooted firmly in sounds of the past, but they haven’t distanced themselves from the present. At one point in the middle of a song, Gruenling reached for his smartphone and started filming the performance while simultaneously playing harmonica. It was a symbolic reminder that blues still has a place in the 2018 music scene.

At several points during the show, audience members approached the stage to snap pictures of the band, and Gruenling obliged them, moving and posing for the photo-seekers.

Moss, for the most part, let his guitar do the talking. At 6’2” with a gruff blues voice, he doesn’t have to work too hard for attention. Dressed head-to-toe in black, he entertained with his expressive guitar work and vocals.

Whether it was Howlin’ Wolf covers (Sunday would have been the blues legend’s 108th birthday) or original material like the new album's “Tight Grip on Your Leash,” the music was performed with soul and power. The addition of long solo sections in the middle of songs had some of them reaching towards ten minutes, but the band’s virtuosity kept the performance interesting.

As the show went on, the largely middle-to-older-aged crowd became progressively more energized. A group of a dozen people started dancing beside the stage, several others stood up and clapped, and a few shouted affirmation during particularly skillful instrumental solos.
Perhaps that energy came from a combination of the music and the alcohol being served all night at the bar.

“Drink up," Moss joked early in the show, "and we’ll be the best band you’ve ever heard.”

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While the Benedictine Monastery might not be torn down, it remains in danger of becoming student housing.

In response to the Tucson City Council’s decision on May 22 to initiate an Historic Landmark designation for the 78-year-old monastery, the property owner Ross Rulney sent a letter to the council threatening to build four-story residential buildings throughout the property and repurpose the monastery into private residential or offices, which is allowed under the current zoning.

The project's architects, from Poster Frost Mirto, presented a proposal to 225 neighbors at the end of March, which included seaking the HL designation and repurpose the sanctuary for public use as a boutique hotel, coffee house or public pool—among other ideas. The plan also included eight-story market-rate residential apartments on the north and south side, and five-story apartments to the east.

Renderings of the high rises surrounding the monastery was met with audible gasps. The architects later lowered the taller buildings to six stories and the shorter to four stories in a new proposal. But Councilmember Steve Kozachik says the height is still too tall.

Former Ward 6 Councilmember Molly McKasson was at the public meeting and says the plans broke her heart. She lives in the Sam Hughes neighborhood, not far away, and grew up visiting the sanctuary.

She said she respects the current zoning but any higher would dwarf one of the city’s most famous and exquisite pieces of architecture. And although Poster cited her in his letter to Mayor and Council as saying six stories is acceptable, she says she doesn’t think that at all.

“There’s an opportunity here to develop that very ample parcel into something beautiful, in the middle of the city, and probably make a pretty good profit,” she said. “My hope is people will work together to come up with some sort of compromise to respect people who own property in the surrounding area as well as these historic structures all over town that people don’t want to see boxed in by six-story towers.”

An HL designation of the monastery would not likely stop Rulney from repurposing the inside of the landmark. The designation requires sensitive design that doesn’t diminish or detract from the primary structure.

Corky Poster, an architect with Poster Frost Mirto, wrote a June 1 letter to Mayor and Council warning that seaking the HL designation could lead to the city owing Rulney millions of dollars in compensation because of Prop 207, a 2006 voter-approved initiative that requires jurisdictions to reimburse land owners when new regulations decrease the property's value.

“In our view, the City of Tucson will likely wind up spending millions of taxpayer dollars to ‘save’ a building that we had agreed, for free, to ‘save’ and rehabilitate four months earlier,” Poster wrote.

He added that if the council shoots down the latest proposal, which would prohibit student housing and include 222 residential units, Rulney will likely decide to build student housing, which yields a higher square-foot rental rate. The monastery would have no public use and probably be turned into student housing itself. And Poster, who has worked on many preservation projects throughout Tucson, would resign from the project

“If the neighbors object to student housing, the City might extend the boundaries of the Landmark to include the whole site, effectively prohibiting any development. That would increase the condemnation payment to the owner substantially,” Poster wrote in his letter.

Two of the world's most unpredictable leaders are meeting in Singapore, each with an olive branch in one hand, a nuclear missile in the other. Our Narcissist-in-Chief cozies up to autocrats while he alienates our natural allies. The country and the world are tip-toeing along the edge of a treacherous cliff. The United States is bracing for the possibility of a dangerous, even irreversible transformation. Some look forward to it with anticipation. Others of us live in dread.

I hear ominous echoes of words and events from a century ago, almost to the year, in the poem by W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming," which I've reproduced at the end of the post.

We are a country built on a constitution and a system of laws, but they aren't enough to hold us together. We depend on the gravitational pull of societal customs and norms to keep us from falling prey our worst tribal, anti-democratic instincts. With Trump's constant stream of lies and half truths, with his condemnation of every branch of government which isn't under his absolute control, with his willingness to go it alone without guidance from governmental traditions or responsible advisors, he is pulling us ever further from our gravitational center.

If Trump and his enablers continue to spiral out of control, carrying us further from the established norms of the executive branch, they will break free from the force which binds this country, as imperfect and as wrong-headed as it often is, together. Lincoln's appeal to the better angels of our nature, the great president's plea that we use the Constitution to help us form a more perfect union, will become so many pretty words piled on the ash heap of discarded ideals.

The center is barely holding. We're falling apart, with no way of knowing what form the shattered bits and pieces of our country will take when they're reassembled.

When I write these T.H.R.E.A.T. Watch posts, which I began the week after Trump's election, I watch the comments section fill with paeans to Trump and his accomplishments and scorn for anyone who thinks differently. The passionate intensity of Trump's supporters jumps off the page with an untamed energy which makes a response nearly impossible. Most readers who agree with what I write remain silent. A few try arguing with the Trump acolytes, but they find themselves shouted down. They're left with the choice of swapping insults with the Trumpists or leaving the field.

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Despite the stereotype that millennials are all about screen time, the age group still prefers print books over e-books, according to a recent University of Arizona study.

The study, led by UA Associate Professor Sabrina Helm, looked at perceptions of ownership and value associated with e-books versus print books. Helm said she was interested in looking at how digital consumption changes interpretations of ownership.

“What does that really mean to own a file of book or of a picture or video and so forth?” Helm said. “Is that the same as having the physical product in hand?”

Researchers conducted the study through four focus groups divided by age: Older generations, Gen Xers and two groups of millennials, one of college students and one of graduates.

Despite her initial assumptions that there would be more openness to digital reading in younger generations and to print in the older generations, Helm said the study found that it “is clearly not the case.”

Across all age groups, print books held more value as possessions, Helm said. Readers talked about loving the smell and feeling of a new book and their ability to be used as decorations.

Current UA senior Kayla Smith said she prefers physical books because she enjoys being able to show off her collection, which she said she couldn’t do on a screen.

Millennials in particular described the bond which print books form in their lives when they start reading as children, according to Helm.

“They touch the pages, they learn how to turn the page and they point at things in the book,” Helm said. “All of that is pretty difficult to do with an e-reader, and so there was very clearly this sense there’s this ability of a book to create social bonds.”