Grope

To be completely honest, I'm a little surprised that none of my students have said anything about this Thought posted on my door. What high schooler wouldn't have to take a second look at this poster? That being said, I did pick out this Thought with a purpose.

I think what separates those who experiment with careers and go somewhere with it from those who simply jump around from job to job, is the idea of objectives. In recent weeks, I've been really struggling with what I want to do with the rest of my life. In all honesty, I have no clue what I want to do. That being said, I do have objectives. I know what I want to be involved with throughout my life. I know that throughout my career, I want to do something that will allow me to be involved in education, agriculture and intrapreneurialism. Now, it's just a matter of finding something that I can practice and hone each one of those.

It's ok to not know what you want to do. Before you can know what you want to do, you need to know what you want to be involved with. What are your objectives? What are those things that are ground-zero, basement level characteristics that HAVE to be in your life? Find them. Find your objectives. The rest will come easy. Explore, sure. But don't grope. Explore with objectives.

Treat

I must confess, I posted this Thought on my door on Friday, but I am just getting to writing about it now. It's interesting (and a little exciting) that my cooperating teacher, a thirty year veteran, commented on my Thoughts. I suppose I must be making a good impression? I suppose this weekend has given me some extra time to think of what I want to write, so I do apologize if I am a little long-winded today.

I think so much of the time as agriculture teachers we get so busy in our students and our work (which doesn't often seem like 'work'). I think I've been at school from 7am to at least 4pm every night in the last week. So many of us forget to take some time and treat ourselves. While it's fantastic to be involved in such a wonderful career field (I will be at school serving breakfast to other teachers at 6:30am tomorrow!) we all need to make sure that we are treated first.

How will you 'treat yo self'? I know my girlfriend for one will have a few suggestions on this one. Even though she's halfway around the world in Rome, I think she's getting the feeling of just how busy I am. Whether it's perfume, fragrances, mimosas or even a batman suit, we all need to take time to treat ourselves. If we can't take care of ourselves, how can we hope to take care of anyone else? How will you 'treat yo self'?

Training

I must confess that I've never seen this saying before. I've always heard of people 'rising to the occasion', but I've never really thought about what that means. The more I have thought about it, this saying gets to the point much better.

As I've been going through this teacher prep period, spending six hours a day, about the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that I am being given some of the best training possible to be a teacher. Going forward, it will not be some unknowable force within me that will allow me to complete my duties and dreams, it will be the training that I have received. I won't 'rise' to any situation, I'll sink to the level of my training.

What is your level of training? When really pressed, how low will you sink? I don't think it's particularly a bad thing to sink to the level of training, it's just a different way to think about it. What will you sink to?

Talk

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving break! It's been far too long since I've plied the keyboard on this page. Today's Thought is particularly relevant for my agricultural educators out there. This week is the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) Convention in Las Vegas. Location notwithstanding, this is a professional development conference aimed at giving teachers a chance to meet up and talk education. It's a chance for many to hear about practices from across the country that may otherwise have never been shared.

I think one of the keys for successful professionals is an ability to be constantly learning on the job. For many, this means joining a career organization such as the NAAE. In order to serve customers to the best of our abilities, we must seek out opportunities to share ideas and talk to others in similar positions. Will you talk? Instead of sequestering yourself, put yourself out there. Get to know someone in a similar situation as you. Who knows, you just might end up helping each other out.

Thanks

I have to say I have no idea who John Green is. However, I do enjoy his sentiment in today's Thought. In all the things that I'm thankful for, near the top of the list has to be the educational system providing for our country. Yes, I think we all realize that there are issues that must be addressed. Within this system (or maybe in spite of it), education at the local levels is amazing. How many others out there continue to hold pride for the high school they graduated from year earlier (Go Rebels!)? Maybe I'm a bit biased as I'm studying to be a teacher, but I for one am thankful that I don't live in a country (completely) filled with stupid people.

What are you thankful for? Moreover, are you thankful just this one week out of the year? Or do you find ways to express thanks throughout the year? Maybe you're thankful for a set of parents who have steered you through life. Or perhaps it's a teacher who showed you how to make a career doing what you love. No matter who or what you are thankful for, show that you are thankful in your words and actions. Yes, for sure, do so this week. But don't stop there. Continue to show your thanks throughout the year.

Roles

I think one of the ongoing debates in education circles is the definition of the teacher's role in the classroom. Today's Thought sums up my thoughts on this debate fairly well. Today was my first day of teaching at my fall placement site, the School of Environmental Studies. As I taught my lessons, it somewhat hit me just how much as a teacher my goal is to inspire students. After teaching I looked back in my lesson plan to see that a vast majority of my lesson was made up of activities meant to get the brain juices flowing. Granted, this was through content-specific activities, but the overarching theme was toward encouraging students to think on their own.

I think this whole idea of roles is an important one, no matter what your profession is. What is your role? Is your role that of encourager, mentor, leader or visionary? Or is it of doer, worker-bee or manual labor? I think no matter what our situation is we can be part of the former category. I challenge you to think about how you can be a leader, encourager or mentor in your life. What is your role? Are you providing ready-made products? Or are you creating conditions for new inventions?

Honor

In today's Thought I return once again to the manly mind of Ron Swanson. British english aside, I truly believe that this quote holds a lot of truth. As I've gone through a number of my courses designed to train me as a teacher, I have consistently found an issue explaining what I feel. It's as if I KNOW what the professors are talking about and I KNOW what it looks like in the classroom. Sometimes I even KNOW how to put an idea into practice. Yet despite all this, I can't explain it.

Honor is in the same boat. When people ask what it means to be an honorable person, I simply don't have an answer for them. It's something that comes from within. Like religion, it means something different to everyone else. And like my education ideas and concepts, it cannot be verbalized. If you need it defined in order to know if you have it, you don't have honor. It's one of those things that is only apparent and explainable through actions and thoughts. Can you define it? I say no.

Responsibility

Today's Thought comes from an interesting article I read during the spring semester.  It came in one of my many education courses that I take in order to obtain a teaching license in Minnesota.  The article had to do with the Finnish school system.  While the article in it's entirety is quite interesting, I chose one quote from this article:

If you spend much time around me, you learn that I'm big on personal responsibility.  You take care of your own house.  If you mess up, you own up to it and work to improve it.  If you are responsible for your own stuff, who do you need to be accountable to?  Take a step further, if we are ALL responsible enough to take care of our stuff, our part of the project, who needs to hold us accountable?  If we can maintain responsibility, accountability (at least the way it is mean in many education discussions) is rendered obsolete.  Now I know that this goal of 100% responsibility will likely never happen, but it is an intriguing goal to pursue.

Do you have personal responsibility?  While I like to say that I do, far too many times I stumble and forget just what my responsibility means.  That doesn't mean we can't keep trying.  Take a look at your life.  Are you a responsible friend?  Brother? Co-Worker?  Don't be the person that has to be held accountable.  I firmly believe in the goodness of humanity and the ultimate desire to do what is right.  Do you have personal responsibility?

Education

What's the value of a good education?  It's a question that I think many college kids like myself struggle with.  So many times I find myself thinking, "What exactly am I paying $24,000 a year for?  Today's Thought, courtesy of Bill Watterson in the form of Calvin and Hobbes answers that question in spades.

I know I'm not the first to believe in the value of a good education.  Walter Kronkite once said, "Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation".  Perhaps that is why I chose to become a teacher.  However, I firmly believe I am a student first and a teacher second.  No matter what we do, we must be learners.  If we don't learn, we will spend our lives falling down because we have both feet through one pant leg.

It is my goal to learn something new everyday, and I sincerely encourage everyone to join me in that goal.  It doesn't matter what you are learning, as long as you are learning something that contributes to your personal improvement as a neighbor, brother, sister, friend, human being.  A final thought: What did you learn today, yesterday, and the day before that?  What will you learn today?

Power

Today's Thought comes courtesy of the website Art of Manliness.  This was in a post on reading.  Now we all learned how to read, probably in elementary school.  If not, I suppose this amounts to a scathing condemnation of our educational system.  Power is something that everyone, at some point in his or her life, seeks.  It's all around us, and yet it often seems to lead only to corruption.  Hollywood has pointed that out to us many times.  So then, what makes the idea of power so alluring?

Today at work, a couple of my coworkers were interviewing someone over the phone for a magazine article.  I won't get into particulars of the discussion or participants, but I will say that the person being interviewed was a very down-to-earth, respectable gentleman.  At some point in the conversation, the idea of education came up.  He talked how he and his family worked hard and worked honestly to improve themselves.  That's how he got to where he is today.

In the end, education is at the root.  Education is what challenges us as people, it's what helps us grow and learn.  Perhaps that's why I decided to go into education as a career.  It's true, books and education are the way to get ahead honestly and fairly.  Education is the definition of personal improvement.  If we are unwilling to learn, how can we grow?  How can we find power?  Are you developing the power within you?  It's there, I promise.  So this weekend, go to the library, read a book.  Or maybe you have that novel that's been sitting on the shelf for months that you always mean to pick up, yet never seem to read.  I know I have those books.  So take the time.  Read a book.  Develop the power that is within you.