Many Are Unfit to Fight
November 22, 2009
What follows is a well-placed dire warning, written by Rick Montgomery of the Kansas City Star.
“Chalk up another national-security threat - this one looming with each excess pound, failing grade and drug bust affecting young adults.
An alarming 75 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 would not qualify for military service today because they are physically unfit, failed to finish high school or have criminal records. So says a new report from Mission: Readiness, an organization of education and military leaders calling for immediate action on the education front.
The report, entitled, “Ready, Willing and Unale to Serve” was endorsed by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and former NATO commander General Wesley Clark and other top retired admirals and generals.
Rear Admiral, James Barnett said, “Our national security in the year 2030 is absolutely dependent on what’s going on in kindergarten today.”
Military recruiters in Kansas city report turning away prospective recruits “in every office, every hour, every day for reasons including girths too large and credit rating too low. Increasingly, applicants are disqualified for having asthma or taking pills for depression or attention disorders. Nearly one-third of all young adults have health issues other than weight that could keep them from serving, says the report.”
Caring Coaches Can Transform Young People’s Lives
November 21, 2009
What follows is an excerpt from an article appearing in the San Jose Mercury News on 11/9/09, written by Tara Vanderveer (head coach of the woman’s basketball at Standford University) and Joann Boyle (who is her counterpart at UC Berkeley.)
“We’re joining together – along with many other coaches around the country, including Mike Singletary, Pete Carroll, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa – to recruit college students to work as volunteer coaches for kids in low-income communities.
We’re doing this because we have seen the transformation impact of engaged, caring coaches on the lives of young people. The greatest reward we’ve enjoyed as coaches has been witnessing the growth of our players into confident, focused and thoughtful young adults. Every good coach has watched a player experience that “aha” moment when he or she discovers some previously untapped quality within – selflessness, perhaps, or perseverance or courage.
We believe every child ought to have that experience.”
And rightly so. Developing the ”spirit” should be an integral part of every class. Teachers who encourage curiosity and enthusiasm know that academic champions are born out of this transformative energy.
The Inner Creates The Outer
November 11, 2009
You can’t plant beans and grow potatoes, any more than you can expect a class to perform when a teacher’s energy is somewhere else.
One of the big challenges of life and teaching is knowing what it is that we want and our willingness to create it.
Teachers who seek greater job satisfaction may want to clarify:
- The kind of class they want to create
- What type of energy they want in the room
- The skills they want their students to take with them
- What they want to be known for
- The parent/teacher relationship and its affect on the student
We produce, not what we say we want, but rather what’s in our heart, which brings to light a universal law that we rarely consider, “The inner creates the outer.”
Socrates Had It Right!
November 11, 2009
Good salespeople know that asking questions is critical to the selling process.
Teachers who are on top of their game know that asking questions is critical to the educational process.
Socrates, the famous Greek Philosopher who lived from 469-399 B.C., noted his students learned more when he addressed them with open ended questions. Socratic teaching is a methodology, a critical thinking technique that enables students to mentally construct, organize and visualize the potential outcome of a thought, before acting upon it.
Questioning, is perhaps, the most accurate mental compass we can give students as they travel down life’s road.
Students Don’t Hear The Teacher, Until They Know The Teacher!
November 6, 2009
Instructors allow students to know them when they:
- Have a meaningful discussion as what is to be learned and why.
- Explain the rules governing the class.
- Invite students to participate in the creation of “educational moments.”
Tips for building bridges:
- Clarity – If you can’t describe your vision, lesson or goal, in one or two sentences, you may be guilty of not having a command of your topic.
- Organize your thoughts in a meaningful way. Make it easy for students to follow you’re logic.
- Memorable Stories. People rarely remember your exact words. Instead, they remember the mental images that your words inspire. Support your key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help students “make the movie” in their heads by using memorable characters, exciting situations, dialogue, suspense and above all, humor.
- Engage a student’s emotions. Emotions answer an unspoken question that fills every student’s mind, “What’s in it for me.”