If I Knew Then: A Letter to Me on My First Day of Teaching. The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks” (& Similar Presentations) I’ve written several posts recently about TED Talks, and thought I’d pull together a short list of resources that would be helpful to other teachers (and me) as we consider how to use them most effectively in our classes. I’m going to start off with a quote from their website explaining what these “things” are: “TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free.
You might also be interested in The “Best” TED Talks (Well, Really, The Ones I Use With My Classes) and The Best Of “TED Talks On Education” Here are my choices for The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks”: Top Ten TED Talks by David Deubelbeiss. How to Deal with Unfairness and Change the Things You Can. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” ~Mary Engelbreit Many times in the past, I’ve complained that things weren’t fair. Sometimes, I was legitimately wronged—like when I was a kid and an adult in my life regularly told people lies about me, seemingly to justify her disdain and mistreatment. Other times, I victimized myself to avoid taking responsibility—like when I didn’t prepare well and bombed at a community theater audition, but attributed my failure to favoritism.
As an indignant adolescent, I blamed many of my difficult early experiences for the perpetual chip on my shoulder. It wasn’t my fault that I was angry all the time; there was just a lot to be bitter about. One day, when I was commiserating with a friend who was upset about a seemingly unfair situation in her life, I wondered: What good does this do us? You can’t create positive change from a negative mindset. Our Biological Response to Unfairness Photo by Panoramas.
Birth and Death. Peace Is Learning the Lesson. “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha It’s strange to feel peace while a part of your heart is being chipped away. I’m in the middle of a heart chipping, but the longer it goes on, the more I’m realizing that it needs to be removed before it hardens the rest of the organ.
Maybe the chipping is kind of like pruning a diseased tree so the remainder grows stronger and more resilient. The cuts hurt like hell though. The last few months have been some of the most difficult of my life. Like it or not, and I really don’t, my own personal pruning must occur. The pruning hurts like hell. I’ve come to believe that love sometimes wraps itself around a process of letting go. I don’t let go easily or often, but love helps me loosen my grip so that when I’m finally prepared, my knuckles are not quite so white from hanging on for dear life. The pruning process of letting go releases the insanity in my life. The trimming hurts like hell. No, I told her (and meant it). Why You Have 43 More Choices That Matter in Life (or Not)
“Life is the sum of all your choices.” ~Albert Camus Ever wondered what might have been? Ever thought about where and who you’d be if only you’d done something differently, gone somewhere else, chosen something or someone else? Probably so, if you’re like most. But have you ever imagined where you might go and what you might still become, with the choices you yet have left? My friends and I were hanging out not too long ago, before I moved away from them (totally escaping their awesome grasp) to start a new life of sorts in this surface-of-sun-like heat of Austin.
Anyway, we were doing what we often do—making fun of the university we went to, when someone asked where else I could have gone. The question pretty much weirded me out right away. I mean, it’s a reasonable question, I guess—except for the fact that I had never thought about it before. It seems I had only ever thought of whether I should have gone to college at all—not whether I should have gone somewhere else.
Where would I be? A Letter from Your Calling. “Every calling is great when greatly pursued.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes It’s me. The one who keeps talking to you about that thing. That project. That possibility. I know you think you couldn’t be the one for the job, but honestly, if you weren’t the one for the job, I wouldn’t have come to you with it. I wouldn’t have come knocking at the door of your mind. I wouldn’t have made it so compelling to think about me. I wouldn’t have planted in you the frustration with what is.
I wouldn’t have planted in you the vision of what could be. You say you want more meaning, more adventure, and to have a greater impact. I’m offering you all of that, but you keep telling me I’m silly, unrealistic, too big, when here I am, ready to give you the greatest adventure of your life. I don’t take it personally, but I do weep about it. I weep for the joy you are missing out on. When I took this job, they told me much of it would be waiting. I want to make sure you know, I’m here, close as breath, waiting. I need you. What We Pay Attention To. “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” ~Jose Ortega y Gassett Have you ever suddenly stopped yourself after realizing you’d been dwelling on something insignificant for way too long?
Maybe it was something that didn’t go right in your day, or something mildly offensive that someone said. Whatever it was, it was something you knew wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and yet you felt a need to mentally rehash it over and over in your head. I’ve done this many times before. Though I know it’s draining and not even slightly productive, it sometimes it seems like a proactive way to “fix” or “solve” something that somehow felt wrong. I suspect it’s also a means to reinforce to myself that I am right and didn’t deserve to be slighted, because rehashing a perceived offense is essentially passing judgment over and over again.
Thinking isn’t just an activity—it manifests as a state of being. As the Buddha said, what we think, we become. Photo by uggboy. 10 Reasons To Quit Your Job Right Now! The game is over. That game where they get to hire you for 40 years, pay you far less than you create, and then give you a gold watch, and then you get bored, you get depressed, and you die alone. It wasn’t that fun of a game anyway.
When I had a corporate job I would wake up depressed. I couldn’t move out of bed. But they were going to kill me in my cubicle. In 2009 I asked about 10 Fortune 500 CEOs, “did you just use this crisis as an excuse to fire all the people you were afraid to fire before.” We’ve entered the “Choose Yourself” era. Most people need to begin planning their exit strategy RIGHT NOW: So here’s the 10 reasons you need to quit your job right now. 1) Safety. 2) Home. 3) College. 4) Your boss. 5) Your coworkers. 6) Fear. 7) The Work. 8) Bad things happen. 9) The economy is about to boom. 10) Your job has clamped your creativity.
Note: I will grant some people love their jobs. Good point. The posts that will help you quit your job. . - What to do if you were Fired Today. Mission Statement For Life. 20 Bad Habits Holding Good People Back. Be a Master of Where You Are Now. “Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield I hadn’t taken a yoga class in a while, and in the midst of my busy schedule I finally gave myself permission to go. Needless to say it had been a few months since I found myself in a downward dog position. Something was different about my participation in two classes I recently took. I wish I could say I was able to go deeper into the poses, but it was actually challenging because my flexibility is not where it used to be.
What struck me were the many great metaphors that these two women, Michelle and Debbie, were sharing in their yoga instruction. I confess, I’m a metaphor junky and look for them everywhere. What I noticed and appreciated about my instructors was that they were both very passionate about the practice of yoga. I also loved that there were so many other rich messages to be heard, metaphorically of course, being that I was paying attention to them. How to Rewire Your Burned-Out Brain: Tips from a Neurologist. For many of you in the northern hemisphere, the school year is coming to a close, and with it comes a likely drop in the stressors that build up and promote teacher (and administrator) burnout. It therefore may not seem timely to suggest interventions to prevent or reduce burnout.
However, it is often not until we are away from a high-stress situation for a while that the brain can move out of reactive survival mode and into a relaxed state where it can ponder the big picture. The burnout interventions I am about to suggest are likely to be ones that you already know. The problem is, when it comes to adding another activity to your schedule, past experiences may have left you with the expectation that there is not enough time -- or you've tried things like this before and didn't notice any change. So you stopped. My belief is that when you understand what happened in your brain to build up the hopelessness and frustration of burnout, you'll connect with the logic of the interventions. Are You Shut Down and Disconnected? “When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.”
~Jack Kornfield I had to work on Easter at my job in a coffee shop. I missed out on my family’s big holiday party, and I struggled with quite a bit of resentment about the whole deal. I could have gotten someone to cover for me, but because I’m one of the more experienced employees and we were short-staffed, I was told that I needed to work. I wasn’t too terribly happy. I came in to work and immediately launched into the craziness of Easter in a coffee shop, sliding Americanos to travelers across the counter with a stone face. I was amazed at how unforgiving people were. So I slogged through the day, helping grumpy people stay awake on the road to a place where they didn’t want to go, when suddenly a single interaction changed the course of my day: A man came in, greeted us warmly while he ordered his coffee, and then apologized.
This one sentence transformed my whole day. Getting Back Your Belief in Yourself. “When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it.” ~Dr. David Schwartz Fifteen months ago I was in a rut. A rather large rut actually. The recession was well and truly in full swing, and I was up to my eyeballs in credit card and loan debt.
I could barely afford to live, let alone pay my mortgage, and there was the threat of losing my home hanging over my head every day. I had spent most of my twenties and thirties working to pay the bills and the rent as most of us do, and frankly, considering the economic climate, I was just grateful to have a job. Most of the time I felt stressed and exhausted with nothing to focus on or look forward to, and I felt as if I couldn’t do a thing about it—which made me feel worse. I’m used to challenges in my life, as I have cerebral palsy. This is not a pity plea. Fifteen months ago, I was faced with brick wall after brick wall. I kept asking myself “Really? In fact, I hadn’t been “me” for years! Photo by Dee <3. 12 inspirational blog posts! Push Beyond Your Limits. Google's Chade-Meng Tan Wants You to Search Inside Yourself for Inner (and World) Peace.
Chade-Meng Tan (widely known as Meng) was among the earliest engineers to be hired at Google. He and his team worked on ways to improve the quality of the site’s search results and also played a key role in the launch of mobile search. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. The conspirators could well be called the compassionati. Meng believes that world peace can be achieved — but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace within themselves. Inner peace, in turn, comes from nurturing emotional intelligence through the practice of mindfulness and meditation.
Meng then decided to open-source the SIY program by making its principles and components available to companies everywhere. The first part of the edited transcript of the conversation appears below. The spark behind creating SIY was my desire for world peace. 12 Most Genius Questions in the World by Angela Maiers. One of the things I love most about being around young children, is their passionate and fierce sense of curiosity. It defines their genius. Why is the sky blue? Who discovered the world? How did the sun get so hot? Where did toothpaste come from? I’m not sure exactly when it happens, but somewhere between grade school and grad school we stop relishing in the question and start celebrating answers. One of my favorite lessons to teach, is the ”The Art of Asking Genius Questions”; taken right from the playbook of my curiosity mentor and coach, Albert Einstein. The goal of the lesson is to help students; big and small, understand that genius is not determined by the questions you are able to answer but rather the questions you are courageous enough to ask of yourselves and of the others you lead and serve.
I have found the following 12 Questions Most Important. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Your homework this week will be to give each of these questions a try. Happy Wondering! John Stanley: Buddha Nature and the Divided Brain. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a world that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift. --Albert Einstein Except in the light of brain hemisphere lateralization, nothing in human psychology makes any sense. --neuroscientist Tim Crow An Old Tale There's a traditional Buddhist story about a statue of incomparable value, which is lost and then forgotten.
Our Divided Brain In his remarkable book, "The Master and his Emissary," neurological psychologist Iain McGilchrist provides a wealth of scientific evidence to support his contention that two opposed realities are rooted in the bi-hemispheric structure of the human brain. Although each hemisphere is specialized, neither functions as an "independent brain. " Basically, the right hemisphere is mute, perceives in a holistic Gestalt manner and synthesizes over space. Buddha Nature In The Empire Of The Left Hemisphere Brain Plasticity And Integration We Are The Environment.
Fuel Your Dreams with Simple Daily Habits. “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” ~Proverb My name is Katie and I am an over-planner. I spend way too much time laying out meticulous plans as if they were exquisite bejeweled gowns. I spread them across beautiful handmade notebooks, trim them with pink and green headings and sub-headings, and step back to admire them when I’m done. They are tomorrow’s plans. I’m addicted to perfecting my plans, but not actually executing them. This repetitive crafting of the next best laid plan has me caught in a time warp where I’m forever looking ahead, forever color-coding the future, forever laying out a decorative path that I don’t have time to explore because I’m too busy planning and perfecting.
My perfect plans are nothing more than plastic-sealed sofas no one ever touches or perfectly manicured rose gardens no one ever smells. Maybe your plans feel this way too. If so, here’s a new plan of attack that just might get you out of your perfect planning rut. Photo by Steve-h. Love Over Tolerance | edtech state of mind. Choosing to Create Happiness.
12 Things You Should Be Able to Say About Yourself. 5 Beliefs That Will Ensure You Never Achieve Success. Believe That You Are Strong. Applied Ethics in Education - Thich Nhat Hanh. Are Things Happening For You or Against You? Be More Creative Today. Simple Tips and Reminders about Living in the Now. 40 Photo-Illustrated Questions to Refocus Your Mind. Stop Thinking So Much. Refill Your Glass: A Simple Way to Make the Most of Yourself. 3 Lies to Eliminate to Start Living Up to Your Potential. Using the Hours We Have. Choose to Be Here.