I wanted to know if my last post made sense for readers, especially in my effort to apply math and technical terms in a social and behavioral context regarding character. As part of my code, I sought insights from an expert in the field. In this case, the expert was my younger son Max, a physics major who also takes lots of math courses at Virginia Tech.

I started our conversation around his understanding of algorithms. He explained that a part of his code is to be mindful as he asks himself in situations whether his mindful mantra of “stability and calm” is in place and if not, he follows his algorithm to engage in practices like meditation or taking a walk to the Va Tech Duck Pond to return to his mindful state. Max responded by stating that he has an algorithm built around a yes/no response and follow-up that he developed from his “code” that runs on his “operating system.” So right off the bat, Max validated my use of the terms code and operating system.

We finished the conversation as I shared about helping young students develop algorithms to apply as they interact with others and various situations. Max responded, “that is a good idea and I think you could use flowcharts to model what the different algorithms look like.”

I smiled not mentioning that my post included that same idea. On a side note, Max is thinking about becoming a physics teacher. 🙂

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