50 Things You Can Control Right Now “Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” ~Unknown CNN reports that psychic businesses are thriving in this challenging economy, and the clientele has expanded to include more business professionals who are worried about their financial future. According to Columbia Business School’s Professor Gita Johar, who studies consumer behavior, the greatest motivation for visiting a psychic is to feel a sense of control. Sure, there are lots of things we can’t control: businesses may fold, stocks may plummet, relationships may end—the list is infinite, really. Right now, you can control: 1. Odds are, some of these resonate with you more than others; so what? When I start fixating on something I can’t control, I pick just one of these to think about instead. Photo by Steve Dean See a typo, an inaccuracy, or something offensive?
Why 20% Time is Good for Schools Have you ever met an adult who doesn't really love what they do, but just goes through the motions in their job and everyday life? Have you spoken with men and women who constantly complain, showing no visible passion for anything in the world? I'm sure that, like me, you have met those people. I've also seen the making of these adults in schools across our country: students who are consistently being "prepared" for the next test, assessment, or grade level . . . only to find out after graduation that they don't really know what they are passionate about. Enter 20% time. What 20% time allows students to do is pick their own project and learning outcomes, while still hitting all the standards and skills for their grade level. With 20% time, we can solve one society’s biggest problems by giving students a purpose for learning and a conduit for their passions and interests. Students It starts with the students. Teachers We've got a tough but extremely rewarding job. Parents Administrators
Expanded Consciousness - Awaken Your Inner Awareness Playlist: 5 Mindshifting talks on happiness (TED is on its annual two-week vacation. During the break, we’re posting playlists from the TEDTalks archive. We’ll be back with new talks on August 29th.) Happiness seems simple, yet the more we look into it, the more layers and complexities we find. Here are five TEDTalks that will transform how you view happiness, and how to achieve it. 1) Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. 2) Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. 3) Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes a life worth living?” 4) Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. 5) Martin Seligman talks about psychology — as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. .
Braingenie You Don’t Owe Anyone An Interaction Have you ever beat yourself up over not responding to every message you received in a day? Me too. I know how it goes. On one hand, you’re tired and overwhelmed. But on the other hand, there are emails! Texts! If we check in with ourselves, we can sense which messages require our attention. If someone writes, we must write back. If someone starts talking, we must converse. If someone moves in for a hug, we must embrace. It doesn’t matter if we feel uncomfortable, exhausted, or just plain unwilling. In the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt pilot episode,reporters interview women who spent 15 years underground in a doomsday cult’s bunker. One woman shares the story of her involvement: “I had waited on [the cult leader] at a York Steak House … and one night he invited me out to his car to see some baby rabbits, and I didn’t want to be rude, so … here we are.” It’s a searing example of how the fear of being rude and impolite can put us in real danger. What if I hurt this person’s feelings?
Motivational Jiu-Jitsu: Staying Positive in the Face of Negativity & Indifference It’s easy to stay motivated when you are on the receiving end of a lot of positive feedback. When your boss, your clients, and your coworkers are giving you high fives and telling you what great work you are doing, you can glide from day to day, churning out more and more great work. Unfortunately, most of us are not riding a tidal wave of high-fives through our workday. If anything, the more demanding your job is, the more likely it is that you are having to field negative criticism on a regular basis. Or, maybe you work alone, and you just don’t get that much feedback — negative or positive — from anyone. So how can we stay motivated in the face of negativity or just plain indifference? I have a simple activity that I do to identify the problem areas, and think about how I can counteract them. The more demanding your job is, the more likely it is that you are having to field negative criticism on a regular basis. Start with the people that give you no feedback. –What’s Your Approach?
Public Lessons: Numerical Patterning This lesson is a re-engagement lesson designed for learners to revisit a problem-solving task they have already experienced. My colleague Stacy Emory best describes re-engagement by comparing it to re-teaching. Re-teaching is a teacher-directed activity where we plan a different lesson to address something that is perceived to be a misconception with our students. Re-engagement is a learner-centered activity wherein the original task is posed in such a way that we may expose learners to different strategies, alternate solutions, or even misconceptions. Think of the original task as a formative assessment that helps you shape the lessons that follow. As learners enter the 6th grade, they have had many experiences with modeling and describing numeric patterns.
10 Life-Enhancing Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less By Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D. It usually takes us much longer to change our moods than we’d like it to take. Here are ten things you can do in ten minutes or less that will have a positive emotional effect on you and those you love. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Sadly, many people measure happiness by how long the experience lasts. Dr. Teacher Guide | My Class Needs Thank you for considering MyClassNeeds. We are looking forward to helping you make your classroom project a crowd-funding success. The purpose of this page is to guide you through the following stages of your project application: Posting and ValidationDonationsSuccess – Fulfillment and Reporting We have additional information available to help you with writing an engaging project proposal and engaging donors. We hope the information provided addresses any questions you might have. Quick Facts What will MyClassNeeds (MCN) fund? Short answer: Almost any project that has a positive impact on K-12 classroom learning, as long as it meets our eligibility guidelines. Long answer: The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Requested project materials can include anything from reading materials to school trips and all possibilities in between. Our goal is to make fundraising simpler and easier for you. What are MyClassNeeds funding limitations? Brief introduction to MyClassNeeds Donors Give
51 Things That Will Make You Smile Some days, it’s easy to smile. You wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, with the warm glow of the morning sun cradling your face. You take several deep, cleansing breaths standing beneath a perfectly cascading shower, just before drawing a smiley face on the steamed-up glass with your index finger. Your roommate or significant other makes your coffee, just the way you like it. But not every day starts this way. You struggle, you fight yourself and other people, and you find yourself wishing you could stop the world so you could get off for a while. But there is an alternative. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. Video Credits: Editing/Song: “Moving Towards Love” by Cheryl B. Readers who contributed: Thank you to everyone who contributed!
7 Habits of Highly Frugal People EmailEmail One of the most direct way to change your life, you need to change your attitude. No one else is responsible for what happens to you but you, so you can either complain about the things you don’t like in your life or you can set about changing them. If you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, having your phone regularly cut off, or making excuses to skip dinners with your friends, then you can use these seven habits to take control of your money situation and live a happier and more frugal lifestyle. Habit One: Be Proactive The first habit to develop is to take responsibility; if you fail, you have no one to blame but yourself. [Here are 6 action steps to take when you feel financially vulnerable.] What most people forget is that though you can’t control the stimulus, you can control your response. How to be proactive for effective frugality: Take the first step. Habit Two: Begin with the End in Mind How to visualize effective frugality: Define your goal. Habit Six: Synergize