Learn

As I move back to school today, I am reminded of why I'm here to begin with - I'm here to learn. Yoda seemed like a perfect fit for my attitude today. While it's true that learning can take place in the form of something completely new - a filling of a blank slate, if you will - the majority of the time learning involves 'unlearning' something else. Growth requires that something has to die in order for something new to take it's place.

Take this past semester for instance. I took an educational psychology class and one of the units was on test writing. Specifically, how to write a test so the answer isn't immediately obvious. If you have been a student, you probably know what I'm talking about. I loved the tests that you could answer one question by reading another question. It was almost too easy. Well, it was my goal to make sure that didn't happen. Going into the class, I thought I had it all figured out. I knew how to write a test, it's not that hard. Well, my work showed me otherwise. Little did I know I was just beginning the process of 'unlearning' my previous habits and practices in order to utilize better, newer practices.
Have you ever had an experience like this? Better yet, were you able to take the experience and learn from it? Perhaps you learned to take things with more openness, testing it before totally throwing it aside. That is something that I took from this lesson. Without unlearning, there can be no learning.

Object

In my fraternity, we have a saying. That saying, shown in todays Thought, is our Object. It's what we as fraternity men live by. It's our creed, our ritual. Not only do we say it at the beginning of each meeting, we are to live it in our daily life. 

Rather than focus on the actual text of the Object, I'd like to focus on the idea of a personal object. Yesterday I talked about ideals. What if we take those ideals and turn them into a mission, a plan, an Object?

Take your ideals, and develop them. Really drill down into what makes you excited and what you are dedicated to. This isn't something that just happens, it's a process. It's a working document, not a final product. Never give up developing your object. Take every experience that you have and use them. Live your object.

Stupid

Today's rather large Thought is another one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. In my days, I think I've seen some pretty pointless things. This strip points out the utter ridiculousness of war and fighting. Now I don't care what your views on war and peace are, but it is an interesting thought. In the last frame, Calvin remarks on the stupidity of their game. Perhaps he has hit on something here.

It seems that with every stage in my life, I have been able to look back and think, "What was I thinking?" I believe that this feeling, this realization of the stupidity of youth is a sign of growth. If you look at the work the same at 22 as you did at 12, something's wrong. The thing is though, you can't consciously try to remedy this. It's something that happens organically. It's a combination of your innate abilities, your drive for knowledge, and many other factors. I realize today's thought may not be the most well-planned or even the best I've ever had, but I think it's worthwhile to revisit. Are you able to say that your choices have led you a better worldview? Are you still playing the game?

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.

The Company You Keep

When it comes to social media, I tend to jump right in and not worry so much about what the 'experts' say I should be doing.  So it's a bit odd that I took so long to get into blogging.  Nevertheless here I am.  I do hope that you enjoy reading of my exploits as much as I enjoy writing of them.

At my summer internship, I've gotten into a rhythm of printing out a Thought of the Day and hanging it on my cubicle divider.  I've found most of the them to be insightful, though a few here and there are just plain funny.  Today's Thought comes courtesy of the website Art of Manliness.  This is one of those sites I like to browse around and just see what I can find.  Through my searching, I found the following poster:

This got me thinking.  Everyone strives to be around good people- people that make you smile, people that make you a better person.  In reality though, what lengths are we willing to go to?  Mr. Soboleski was driven to be a paratrooper, just to have an elite group of men around him.

Confucius once said, "Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself."  The idea here is constant personal improvement.  Whether that improvement be as a person, student, parent, teacher, friend; it's all the same.  The people you surround yourself with makes a difference.  With that in mind, how do the people in your life help you in that mission of constant improvement?