Merry Christmas and I do mean Christmas

I know we have heard the phrase "put Christ in Christmas." For many of us that simply means to acknowledge a religious connection and minimize the Sante Clause stuff.

What does it really mean to pull out a few quarters in your pocket and drop them in the red kettle, or better yet put them in the cup of that person who walks thru traffic?

What does it mean to have Christ in our life? A simple person, born in a simple stable. We traditionally take out manger scenes and arrange statues indoor and out to represent the manger. Could you live in a manger? What about the person in the park that still has a tent up in this weather?

When was the last time you looked deeply into the eyes of the guy on the ground shaking his cup outside the 7-Eleven?

This Christmas, say Merry Christmas, because it is a holy day. Say Merry Christmas and have mercy on the homeless, the beggars, and the downtrodden.

Have mercy on them.

Dewey, Kotter and Campbell on Democracy, Education and Change

I recently upgraded to Windows 10 and incurred plenty of change. I also encountered more applications that would not work with the newly upgraded Windows 10 and the "Edge." What is it about change that works? I began to ponder change in education.

Learning is change. In my graduate studies in education we had to take a course in change management. At the time, I was not connecting the liberal learning seminar to my studies on theories of education. However, since my education was so engaging, I actually retained something in the back of my mind.  The first part of this equation of learning was influenced by John Dewey.

When it came to learning, Dewey is my "leader of learning." I just ate up all that experiential learning and using activity to engage students. I love all of his theories of learning.  There was that one issue about democracy in education that did not seem to synthesize at the time.

Dewey had beliefs in education and reform. I was not paying attention at the time and the words education reform and my organizational change management seminar never crossed paths in my brain. Until now.  Dewey's words now jump off the page 

"I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile." 

Did Dewey mean that reforms will fail that are forced upon educators? I think Dewey clarifies himself in another of his stated beliefs 

"I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass."

I wonder are we loosing track of the social individual during education reform? Can we continue down this path of educating students to get  a robotic job, or the work of the day, and eliminate these social factors? Dewey does not seem to think so. 

"I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."

Learning is change. Let me tackle the change portion of this equation, and my learning in the course on organizational change management. We studied John Kotter and his book Leading Change.

In class, we threw around saying like "Culture eats strategy for lunch" with reckless abandon. We memorized the models of proven organizational change management from Lewin's three-step process and Kotter's eight-step process, to Bullock and Batten known for planned change, Neckhard and Harris for a change model formula, and Nadler and Tushman for congruence model. Of course we studied the scholarly works from Harvard University and MIT on how to institute successful organization change. Communication of the vision and buy in from all the actors seemed to be the overarching theme of successful change.  

None of the books addressed the Miegs Field model of change management. Perhaps it was still to early in the life of this new model. The model that keeps change top secret until the moment it happens, does not allow voices to be heard because they just drag out the process, and a system that thinks they know what is best for the society. Miegs Field did enact change overnight in a most undemocratic manner.  If you asked people today if they think it a good idea to tear down Northerly Island in favor of a few private pilots to build a landing strip, then you would hear the protests.

With the exception of Miegs Field, successful change involves communication. Kotter even addresses the predominating political organization when he asserts: 

"Organizations of the future will have to value candid discussion far more than they do today. Norms associated with political polite –ism,  with non-conformational diplomaticese, and with killing-the-messenger-of-bad-news  will have to change.  The volume knob of the dishonest dialog channel will have to be turned down."   

 

Organizations with communication dysfunctions must find a way to communicate to effect real change. 

Learning is change. Hopefully, I can come back full circle to Dewey and synthesize with Kotter. If educators embody the same beliefs as Dewey, and there is a functional communication system, then the open communication of education reform can produce a successful organization change. Without a voice from Dewey influencing the reform, it is as he said "transitory and futile."

So when it looks like east-is-east-and-west-is-west and never-the-twain-shall-meet, then the time is now to read the other textbook from my graduate organization change seminar:

I can-----I will

Lately life has become a delicate negotiation of "I can" and "I will." Last month I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee. Of course the superhuman athlete in me want to jump up and ride my bike on a hundred mile fall  Apple Cider Century bicycle ride. I have these goals. Bucket lists of sorts. I will ride a century bike ride this fall. This goal now must be negotiated with the "Can I?" This month the negotiation seems to stop at about a hour on the stationary cycle. Nowhere near a good days ride in a century where you start at the crack of dawn. Slowly wind your way thru a morning fog misting on your glasses, stop and have bananas and coffee.  Ride some more and then break for a lunch as you watch riders come and go, wax and wane, till you roll past the countryside in bliss. That "I will" will have to wait, for now it is one hour of Al Roker on my living room bike. My cat bats the turning wheel thinking the logo is a new cat toy.

"I can" has some physical limitations right now. It is not going to be that way for long because the "I will" is still trying to negotiate a better deal. As long as that is happening, I think I am good.

As I get older everyday is becoming a bargain between I can make it to yoga this morning despite the stiffness. I will master the yoga positions and I will graduate to the Continuing yoga class.  So I was wondering, why do I have to set a goal to graduate to the next class. Why can't I master yoga in the Beginners class? Do I want to go to Continuing Yoga just because it's there? Long term goals in yoga can take decades. To get a good tree pose, table pose or worse frog stand may take decades. This morning I am bargaining with my stiff tendons for the ability to get to class by 9:30am. I am bribed by a good cup of coffee and some warm blanket around my ankles. The negotiation takes on another dimension - I can break out of the comfort zone and work on yoga because I will graduate one day.

One thing that seems to lack any bargaining is walking the dog. Inuki has her way all the time. I will walk the dog because I can.




I will ride a century because I can. Later.


-Terri

"Who Moved My Cheese' and Other Thoughts on Change

We had to read a book in Graduate School called Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life. 

It is standard reading for business students, but I read it in my Educating Adults master program. It is a allegory for change. If I can recap a quick, Wikipedia version, interpretation of the story, it goes like this:

There are two mice, Sniff and Scurry and two mini peoples, Hem and Haw. They live and work in a maze that is overseen by corporate heads way above them that they cannot see or communicate with. The point of being in the maze is to get your cheese. The mini people and the mice find the cheese and establish routines around the cheese. The mini people become arrogant about the stash of cheese they are working on and they become lazy. The mice, Sniff and Scurry, are always noticing things, warning signs, and sniffing the cheese to see if it is getting old.

 

One day they come to the maze and there is no cheese. Scurry goes off hunting for new cheese, as he had read the warning signs. Sniff is not far behind him. Hem and Haw return to the same station and continue to find no cheese. They complain about the unfairness. Hem finally goes out looking for new cheese, but Haw remains in the victimized mindset. Haw remains hoping for change.

 

Meanwhile Sniff and Scurry have found a new cheese station and it has new flavors of cheese. The two of them quickly adapt to the new flavor of cheese.

 

Hem begins to laugh at his situation and posts on the wall a message he hope Haw will see: "If you don't change you become extinct."

 

Haw finds new cheese and learns to smell the cheese to see if it getting to a point where change will take the cheese away. Haw learns to adapt quickly and writes on the wall "the sooner you move off old cheese the sooner you will enjoy new cheese."

 

 

 

So the answer is not a simple as find another maze to go work in. It's not about finding another job. The lesson from Sniff and Scurry is to become life long learners and always be ready to accommodate new learning and new situations. It is about being less arrogant and listening to new people and people that are different. When they let you know it's time to change, find a way to change. The corporate maze keeper will always want to try new flavors of cheese, will always want to make some type of change, just to keep the day filled with activities. It's true there is no concern for what is going on in the maze and what the mice are going through.

 

 

Once upon a time, I was brought into a maze that had some arrogant mini-people with some very old stinky cheese. I knew I was a lifelong learner and hoped to show the old mini-people new ways. I hoped to illustrate to them the writing on the walls, that I read when I saw the corporate headquarters change. I think I was brought into the maze along with a bunch of other new mice to see if we could change the mini-people into new way of thinking.

 

 It sadly did not work out. The old mini-people pushed the new mice around, bullying and brazenly using arrogance to intimidate the new mice. If any of the new mice spoke up against the treatment, they were cast away as outsiders who could not play well with others. The once upon a time story has no happy ending. All the mini-people will be put in one small maze and they will battle it out in a bloody fashion. Being one of the new mice, lifelong learning has never stopped for me.  This mouse was sniffing the cheese and reading the walls a long time ago.

 

T.

 

Orchestrating Learning and a few of my favorite metaphors

I always thought this picture of an orchestral conductor was the perfect metaphor for what I want to do when I teach. Don't make the music yet signal the music, control the cadence, let  each play their own piece, yet play in harmony with each other.

Much has been said about being a facilitator of learning. Stand aside and let the students explore and experience learning. Stop talking and let the learners engage in discussions.

Facilitating learning can be standing on the sidelines like a coach observing and offering expert advice when needed.

 

Learning takes place in informal settings, while students are chattering. Higher cognitive work takes place as learners synthesize knowledge and ideas under informal circumstances. Submerged below the surface it is often difficult to measure informal learning.

Orchestrating learning:1. to compose or arrange (learning) for performance by a classroom full of learners 

2. to arrange or manipulate, especially by means of clever or thorough planning or maneuvering, a collaborative, experiential, problem-based, constructivist learning environment.

 

School starts Monday, August 24, 2015

 



  

Can we just get along?

 

I love it when I see a simple model that does so much to organize thoughts around extremely complex problems. This model represents a conflict resolution.  It goes like this:

In the far right hand upper square of Our Way we have a good state of people getting along. They are assertive. Assertive means you have permission to use your knowledge. You have the power to feel comfortable being assertive. You self esteem is good and you know your stuff. You are also concerned for the other party in your environment. They care about what you are doing and you care about what happens to them. In short you are cooperating and collaborating in what ever project you are doing. It is truly the sweet spot of where we want to be.

The other three squares are problem areas which have conflicts to be resolved.

Lets take avoidance, or the No Way square. How many times have we seen this? One party is overly assertive and does not have concern for the other party. The other party has no power to speak up or little self esteem to bring up contrary opinions, nor can they assert themselves. So the No Way party will nod heads and smile and say sure I'll do that. Then never do it and avoid the conflict. There is no cooperation, care or concern that failure will occur. This is the most difficult square to get people to move into the Our Way square. They have two factors to move.

Now let's move to the Your Way.  One of the parties lacks power to be assertive and cannot voice opinions. Some how the weaker party still thinks the other is concerned for their well being and will do what they want. They accommodate the assertive opposing party and have a partial cooperation. Feedback from the lower assertive party never makes it up to the top. As a matter of fact they may even withhold valuable feedback.  It plays out in real life when one party knows something will not work, but goes along with You Way only to stand by and watch it fail. This square is dangerous until the assertive party acknowledges the other has valuable knowledge to consider and provides recognition. That improves self esteem and the parties move toward the Our Way Square.

The last square is My Way. As the title suggests one party is powerful and assertive with no concern or care for the other party. It is truly my way or the highway. This square hands out orders and unilateral commands. It disregards the other parties knowledge and power to communicate their concerns. However the other party is capable of being assertive as well. This is where sparks really fly. Two parties capable of speaking up and asserting them selves in the conflict. However both parties have no concern for the well being of the other. Sounds like divorce doesn't it? Usually in My Way the leading party will win and get their way. To resolve this conflict (other than divorce) the two parties must begin to care about the concerns of each other. Once concerns can be negotiated, the parties can move toward Our Way.

Sometimes we never totally move to the Our Way square and conflicts settle in to compromise. There remains non optimum concern for each other and there remains problems with assertiveness and self esteem. All the parties in the conflict do not want to budge on sharing knowledge or information that would totally resolve conflicts. So the parties never move to the Our Way square.

Our Way is the optimum sweet spot. How do you resolve your conflicts? How are you moving your positions to Our Way?

Do you have a Sadhu in your life?

The Parable of the Sadhu has been a required case study in ethics for many b-school students. I had to study ethics at some point in my educational background  and was introduced to the story.

The case goes something like this: A Wall Street money dude goes to Himalayas to climb his mountain and runs into an old "Sadhu" on the ice pack in near death condition. A Sadhu is a spiritual person who shuns clothing and complicated ways and practices meditation and yoga. So the climbing party puts some clothing on the Sadhu and passes him off to the Japanese climbers, who then pass him off again after giving him some tea. Eventually the Wall Street dude's buddy takes the Sadhu down to a better elevation and points him in the direction of safety. No one wanted to stop and help because they were on their own difficult  journey. Wall Street guy gets haunted later when back in New York about his greedy selfish actions.

I think the actual case is now owned by Harvard Business Review and so if you want real knowledge of The Parable of the Sadhu, you have to pay them for it.

Thinking -we can still do for free.

 

 

Of course there is a method to my madness, I have a Sadhu right now I am tripping over. Someone in my summer exercise class is getting increasingly forgetful. No, not like losing the keys, or forgetting where you left your glasses, this is real forgetfulness. You see the rest of my community of friends take the class all year round, and I take during the summer only. So I can see the decline from year to year where my friends cannot.

 

What do I do? Does she have family? I met her mom at exercise class last Christmas, so she must have family. What if I intervene and upset her natural routine of getting on the community bus and spending the day exercising? What if she wanders away from the facility when it is dangerously hot or freezing? Lately she can loose her way back to her exercise chair spot. It's a real possibility. 

 

This Sadhu of mine is haunting me. Ethical decisions are difficult to make. So many would say it's not your business, stay out. Or that's HIPPA privacy territory, you cannot discuss medical conditions of people. And the most frequent of them all----it's not your responsibility.

 

Who are we accountable to if not to our fellow human beings? Since when do we need to be assigned responsibility? I thought that was a birth right. You take care of those in need. Don't you?

 

Do you see the person holding the cup out or do you blindly look past the ruffled disheveled person asking for help? Do you rationalize that they must have tons of disability income or social security? Do you reason that you paid your social security taxes and that took care of your responsibility? Can you actually look into the eyes of the beggar?

 

 

 

 

I am beginning to think we all have a Sadhu somewhere in our lives, but we are so keen on getting to where we are going that we don't see the Sadhu. Where is this temporary trip on earth taking you?

 

Momma said

My momma said "If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

love

 

 

 

 

 

everyone.

Blind Faith

Besides a nice restaurant in Evanston, what do we mean by blind faith. What is faith? I am not just speaking of the religious experience.  What do we believe in that we cannot see, yet we have faith. If I begin reflecting on this word, I know that faith in Spanish is two simple letters: "fe."  Can a word so simple have such deep meaning and wonder?

Is faith something we can rely upon and trust? Do we have faith in the monetary system? I heard a politician once say in defense of his monetary indiscretions, that he had no faith in the monetary system. I wondered why I should have any faith in the political system. In ancient Greece, faith translated to mean: trusted, reliable, of firm persuasion, to be counted on at all times, loyal.

Have you ever embarked on a project that was blazing new ground and you were not sure you could do it? But you relied upon faith to get you through the project. Faith that other people would behave appropriately. Faith that the system would support your project. Faith that decisions made would be the correct ones and when not that they would be recognized and changeable to correct ones. Faith that people will be flexible and adaptable to change that a new project brings. Blind faith.

Placing your faith in other humans can be a risky thing. We have faith that people will embrace diversity in people, yet we are constantly disappointed in the news just about everyday. Faith is sticking to the belief regardless of the disappointment around you. Faith is trusting bankers even after they caused the mortgage meltdown.

There is a story in archeology that when they dug up the city of Pompeii, they found people cowered in basements and hiding in rooftops, but only the Roman soldier was buried in the hot gaseous ash standing guard at his post. Faith is a consistency in your character. It borders on stubbornness and it is hard to tell the difference. Acting with faith is for other humans, things, ideas, and stubbornness is just an all about me attitude.

Faith is what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates relied upon when they quit their jobs at Hewlett Packard after getting turned down to develop personal computers. Faith is what launched FedEx and DHL into the standard of shipping today. Faith is at the core of many Black Swan events.

Things can never be right 100% of the time. Faith gets us through the failures of man. (collectively speaking men and women)  According to Robert Strand, an author of Nine Fruits of the Spirit, if things were right 99.9% of the time there would be:

• 2 unsafe landings at O'Hare every day
• 16,000 pieces of lost mail every hour
• 500 incorrect surgeries every week
• 50 babies dropped on the delivery floor every day
• and 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions every year

I have often wondered if the waitress at the restaurant was just picking on me when the order came incorrect. Somehow even with disappointments and failures we maintain a faith is systems that all will turn out well. The stronger our faith in a spiritual being , or faith is God, (whatever your choosing) the more we should be able to see that the incorrect meal that waitress delivered was meant for us. That a higher spiritual being caused us to miss that plane. If we truly have faith in our lives there is a surprising release of negative energy from failed expectations.

Accepting faith actions from others, and acting faithfully toward others is the balance of living in blind faith. What do you believe in that you cannot see yet trust?

+TmC

East is East and West is West

And never the twain shall meet. My 7th grade teacher used to say that in class, often enough that it is still ingrained in my head. What did she mean by that? Are there things that are just so polar opposite that they are not destined to ever "meet"?

I began to wonder about the topic of politics and science. The pope has written about the sciences and behaviors of man. Politicians have espoused their opinions on the sciences and behaviors of man. Looks like these two camps are a twain that shall not meet. So it got me thinking about the two.

According to Merriam Webster online dictionary, today's definition of politics is the theory and practice of influencing people, often characterized by artful (manipulative) and dishonest practices. Key word here is influencing people. The definition of science is systematic examination, intellectual practice of thorough examination and observation to obtain an organized body of knowledge. So politics is creating thoughts for people to believe and science is gathering facts on nature and the behavior of man.

 This is not the first time the church has stepped in on science. Back in 1616 the church interrogated and banished Galileo for his views on the earth revolving around the sun. In the middle ages science was stunted by the views of the pope at the time. Galileo never the less went about attempting to influence people to accept his theory and got thrown in jail.

Getting back to the twain that shall never meet. Did the church, via the Pope Francis, just use science of the climate and earth to issue a plea to maintain this planet as a sustainable living environment? Sounds like the positions that were once shunned, such as scientific methods, theories and observations of facts, are now changing from east to west.

 Did our politics change direction? When science is eliminated from textbooks in elementary schools and replaced with religious beliefs, I think it has come full circle. It is a shame how much science is being stripped from education by the power of influence, misrepresentation and artful manipulation. When my child came home and said that the high school teacher is not using the textbook to teach and he has handouts for all the lessons, I wondered what was wrong with the text and what was on his handouts. So I looked at both. The introduction page of the science textbook stated "that science is not truth and students who have religious beliefs may not agree with science. Further that not all scientific theory is presented in this textbook because of religious beliefs." So like it's ok to flunk science if you have religious beliefs?

 What we hear in the news is just a tip of the iceberg. That old Pareto rule of 80/20 is at it again. The Meta-trend of science vs religion will create another dark ages, possibly. But just like in politics, there are opposing twain's of thought, one religious camp (Pope Francis) espoused science to illustrate the harm to humans, and the other religious camp espouses letting religion trump beliefs that man is doing harm. East is east and west is west, the twain shall never meet.
-Tmc

Changing your perspective.

Look at one thing today from the opposite perspective. Instead of looking at the lawn care guy, stand in his perspective and look through his perspective. Instead of talking to the waitress, stand in her perspective and listen through her perspective.

Informal Teaching: What are you teaching?

I talked about informal learning in my last blog. We learn more informally than formally. Informal learning transpires in everyday life events, work, conversations and collaboration of people.

The natural accountant in me thinks about debits and credits all the time. Wait, wait, don't run and hide this is not about teaching you accounting. But let me put forth just this one lesson from accounting: for every debit there is a credit.  This is really not an unusual idea. The Chinese have a philosophy called the Yin and the Yang. That is contrasting forces complement each other.  One needs the other. A debit is not complete without the credit, a yin is not complete without the yang.

So it is with learning. If we learn informally, that is with out the structure of a formal place of learning like a school or college, who is the teacher? We have teachers roles clearly defined in formal learning process. They organize the learning activities, provide material to achieve outcomes of intended consequences, and measure it.  If you are at university you can look up teachers in a database to determine if you want to take their class, or not. So it is clear we know the teachers of our formal learning experiences. Who is the teacher of your informal learning experiences?

Informal learning has it good side and bad side. We can learn good character from good teachers of character or we can acquire bad character from our informal teachers. For example, just about everyone agrees that racism is bad. Yet people learn racism to this day. There is no Racism 101 offered at universities that formally teach people to be racist (far as I know, so help me God). It is part of that 80% of informal learning. Someone teaches it to others, some collaborate with others in the workplace to teach and learn the ways, some see demonstrations and model the example when they learn racism. Funny all those examples sound just like philosophies of teaching (Pratt).

How we know if we are informally learning good or bad is a function of critical thinking and mindfulness. Simply asking questions and being aware of what you are learning.

I was at a Pastoral Migratoria meeting one day. The US Senate was still debating immigration reform. Someone mentioned a negative comment from an opponent of immigration reform. In my past, I have come to despise a few of these opposition leaders. Mere mention of the name John Boehner conjured up negative emotions, rejecting all his policies and perspectives. But this time I hear a voice say " He is opportunity for prayer." I turned to see Elena Segura, from the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese. My friends around me said "yes, she says that often."

I recognized this as an informal learning experience. What a wonderful perspective it is to think of the "enemy" as one in need of prayer. All the lessons from the Bible streamed into the critical thinking, Love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, love conquers all, love never fails. I am not one of those people that pulls chapter and verse out of my hat, but I recognized the teaching. Opportunities for prayer seemed to embody the spirit of love and hope that through prayer that person will come to see mercy and treat humanity with mercy. That day Elena was my teacher. I have used the 'opportunities for prayer' many times since then.

Now when someone does something disagreeable, like lying or misrepresenting the truth, I just respond with they are an opportunity for prayer. And the best prayer for that opportunity, in my opinion, is the Lords Prayer.

 

What will you teach today?

Informal Learning from an Online MOOC

It's summertime officially. Yea, we can go out to play. My memories of summertime involved lots of play time in a vacant lot next to our house. We organized our own games and sometimes played neighborhood legacy games. We taught each other the rules and strategies of games like kick the can, flashlight tag, and SPUD.

What actually was transpiring was informal learning.

Through my research I discovered that we learn 70% to 80% of our knowledge via informal learning. We learn 20% to 30% in classrooms, schools, and universities. Wow, that's a lot of learning going on over the summertime. But it is so much fun, how could we be learning?

Informal learning is intrinsically motivated. We do it because we want to do it. Makes a big difference is how deep we learn. We might be able to remember games of SPUD learned 30 to 40 years ago, but fail to remember our third grade math teacher's lesson plan. Often if we are intrinsically motivated we will remember what we learned longer. (For the record Sister Matilda was my third grade teacher and I will never forget that ruler she used to rap our knuckles)

Wondering about what you would like to wonder about more this summer?

There are plenty of MOOCs online. MOOC stands for Massive Online Open Course. A popular course may have students from all over the world, have hundreds even thousands taking the course. Some course are taken at your own speed, some are guided over 8 to 10 weeks. There is usually no credit given for the course, but you can pay extra for a certificate that you completed the course. A nice thing to hang on your wall. At the end of the course you know what you know. You use what you learned in your life or in your job. Or perhaps you just take a course out of curiosity about something. MOOCs can help you become a smarter person who when tested in the formal school earns better grades and higher credentials.

There are plenty of offerings available online for FREE. Kahn Academy has a great math section. They do a good job determining what you need to learn and what level of math you are competent. Coursera has a number of offerings from prestigious universities all over the world. I will be taking a course to help me get better organized called Get Organized: How to be a Together Teacher.  EDx is a joint effort between Harvard University and MIT. I took Leaders of Learning last summer and was really impressed. This summer I plan to take Introduction to Data Wise: A Collaborative Process to Improve Teaching and Learning. It is weird to take it alone, since it is all about getting a team of teachers together to use data correctly to improve instruction. Data is a new horizon and I will be getting new data tools for analysis at work. So this course could benefit my instruction and the institution. EDx is also offering a course called Design and Development of Games for Learning. This sounds interesting if you want to create an application to present a learning game for your students. Udacity is another source for engaging online courses in the area of programming, data development and computer science.

Open Courseware is online courses mostly for free from the top universities. You could take a history class at Yale or a class in Managing Refugee Healthcare from John Hopkins University. You could invent a money making smartphone app in a free online course from MIT.

What will you find to learn informally this summer?

How do we learn things?

I was introduced to several models of learning during my exploration in how to teach accounting. The one model that stood out for me was Taylor's learning cycle.

In my first few attempts at teaching accounting at the college level, I asked students if they knew how they learned. "Nope" was the typical answer. I energetically teased with a "you are all the way up to college level and no one told you how you do it?"  They leaned in as I explained the Taylor Model.

Learning begins with a disorienting event. Something is said or done that does not match up to what you already know. You get a disorienting feeling. A deer in the headlights feeling. It is uncomfortable to be disoriented. Some have stress and anxiety. What the mind then does can be to respond to this stress with a fight-or-flight reaction. Fight reactions would be similar to "I hate this topic, this is stupid, stupid textbook, the teacher is dumb, what do I need this junk for..." Then I observe students nodding heads and giving nervous laughs as they recall and remember. A flight reaction would be something like procrastination.  "Oh I can just watch this game first then I learn this junk, or my friend just called to go to a party, or I have to go shopping first, then I'll get to this later"

Instead of letting the negative stress and anxiety lead you into fight-or-flight responses, embrace the disorientation feeling, say to yourself "I am feeling disorientation which means I am on the way to learning something new." Encourage yourself to approach it in a positive manner. Getting past the reaction to disorientation is the biggest challenge to learning.

If you live in the City of Chicago, like I do, there really are shootings and people getting shot on your street corner. Police leave the blood on the streets after the body is off to the morgue. One time my Alderman, Joe Moore, got a mop and pail out of a nearby building to wash the sidewalks of a drive-by he witnessed. Violence is real to those living in the city. We don't have "post" traumatic stress disorder, we have "constant" traumatic stress disorder.

We have an overactive amygdala as a result. That amygdala is the part of the brain that does the split second flight-or-fight response. The amygdala has a role in emotion, learning and memory. This is only one of the many factors challenging learning, but is core to many challenges.

Once we recognize the disorientation, we seek to resolve the situation by exploring and searching for information, facts, processes, solutions to problems, and knowledge to match up to the layers of what we already know. This phase uses curiosity. Curiosity needs time to roam around. Curiosity needs space to perform trial and error. We need to experiment. We need to ponder. What happens to many in this phase is the "Efficiency Sargent" takes over.  The learner finds themselves trying to gather and assemble all the knowledge in the easiest (most efficient to them at the time) manner possible. Even if searching means finding the answers on the internet. This produces a very slim level of knowledge. Most likely just enough to pass a quiz or test.

Deep learning occurs during a messy, search for information and many trials and errors. Deep learning occurs when "time" gets lost searching and exploring learning. Have you ever got so deep into a project that 2 to 3 hours passed and you realize you have not even stopped for lunch or dinner? Deep learning happens when the learner is "in the flow." Athletes performing in the "zone" are in a flow state. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who named the process, the flow produces a sense of joy in the person. Things take place effortlessly and pleasure is the response in the flow state. 

Could my students be getting high in the flow state? The reorientation phase of the learning cycle is a satisfaction of stress that caused the disorientation. We now close the circle by progressing to the state of equilibrium. Everything is cool in the equilibrium state. Now is the time to go out dancing at the club.

Thinking, visualizing and meditating

Lately I have been thinking about thinking, wondering about visualization, and meditating on things.

Thinking can be a powerful tool. I remember reading books when I was younger like Think and Grow Rich and I collected Horatio Algiers books for inspiration. Apparently it was not just a fad and many authors still write on the topic and many more still practice Positive Thinking. The Laws of Attraction are used by many authors, speakers and TV talk show hosts. Gee it works for them they manage to attract money by selling the theme to people who really want to believe.

This much I know about positive thinking, If someone around you is cranky, whining, dull, negative, complainer or just a Debbie Downer, you will want to go off in another direction and rid your self of these people. If someone is a charismatic, trusting, forthright, positive, inspirational leader, you are more likely to follow that leader. You will listen to positive news more readily than negative.

Can we really change the universe with the sole power of positive thinking? Under the umbrella of first do no harm, what can it hurt? If we think that change is positive, say at a job, and we openly embrace the change, will we have a less stressful time accepting and changing technology. I seem to think so. If I look at a new technology and say this will work, I see my self using the new technology for everything the innovators and implementers intended. I visualize myself having success with a new program or new technology, I seek out the positive contributions that new technology will enable. It works for me.

Of course I have observed those that do the opposite. They have negative thoughts about technology change and think technology will fail them. Low and behold, they hit the wrong key and it fails. Some call it Manifest Destiny. When I observe the Refuseniks of change, I recall a book on change Who Moved My Cheese. Sure enough they stay by the old cheese till it gets stinky. Refuse to read the writing on the walls. Sometimes it is just amazing to watch, other times you want to reach out and ask them what are you afraid of doing?

What else can people visualize? Where else can the Law of Attraction be utilized? Can we have positive thoughts about a person and then they become an ally, friend, or partner? Only if we can persuade their pathway of thought. It could do no harm.

Can we hope and pray, (a powerful form of visualization and meditation) that a sick friend or relative gets better? This has been know to happen or at least attributed to prayer. Researchers have interviewed doctors and found that there seems to be something to it.  Under the first do no harm doctrine, what can it hurt?

Today and everyday after, think positively that you can achieve better health and look stronger and appear younger. Visualize yourself doing things as a younger person would, moving in a stronger walk or gait, see yourself in the mirror looking younger.  Do it everyday.

Just for the helluva it see if it works.

Living in the truth

How difficult is it to live in the truth?
I am not talking church stuff here. Just plain being honest with yourself? Have you been using people? Do you manipulate people with half truths and outright lies? How much time do people spend creating the false image of what is happening with them or around them? The maintenance time alone is extraordinary. When you live in the truth you have tons of time to accomplish things. Some great things some just simple meaningful things that have a positive impact on humanity.

I have encountered people who create entire holograms of their reality and it saps their energy of everyday life. Holograms of reality take energy to stay up or they will fade away. I have always wondered what that person could be or become if they were not so plugged into an energy wasting hologram?

Problems occur when you live in the truth and you begin to see truth and light shines on the real reality you are observing or par-taking. For one thing, those who are spending energy on false realities are really adamantly opposed to hearing your truth as it might cause their hologram to collapse.

Being truthful is different from having beliefs. We can and do, have beliefs in what we cannot see, touch, or hear. If we believe in God, everlasting life, spiritual souls, even positive energy healing, we have beliefs in something that is unseen. We rely on testaments of others to believe.

When you do not live in the truth how do you expect people to ever believe in you? Question reality was an old saying from the 60's. I guess it is ok to question reality, but to try to destroy someone's false hologram of their reality is unproductive. So many of us do service to people who by reinforcing and playing along with their manipulation of people and reality. It's really not worth the energy in some cases. But will people ever believe in them? Will people acknowledge them as leaders? Will they ever be able to put their energy to good use to be so recognized that others will give testament. That is the sad part of a false reality. We die without ever really being known.

Right Brains Left Brains, Multiple Intelligences
As I plowed through a master in educating adults, I gathered all these applications to our cognitive sphere called our mind, brain, or just plain noggin. We know we have two separate spheres that communicate with each other but one usually dominates the other. Creative people are not math geeks, and analytical people are not artists. We can feed and nurture the other side of our predominant side of the brain with exercises. Why does it seem analytical brains want to exercise creative side but I do not see many creative people exercising the inner geek in themselves? Innovation occurs when the right brain communicates with the left brain. Or is it the other way around?  Daniel Pink influenced my approach to left brain work. If the skill is a repetitive skill it will be shipped overseas to be done. I thought about that as I saw my job become more repetitive and less creative. I purposefully developed keen lines of strategies for business situations that kept my job from being exported. Once the strategy is in place and executed, the job of recording , be it a financial or tax return, can go overseas.  What about this job of teaching? Can this job be so generic, or commoditized that the job of teaching goes overseas? Well, I can teach online from anywhere in the world. Stands to reason that someone anywhere in the world can take over teaching online courses here in the USA.  How do you stay in Daniel Pinks definition of jobs of the future?  Innovate, create more courses and programs that are well suited for online learning. Not all students and not all courses are suited for online learning. But I we borrow our right brain for curriculum development that delivers engaging courses that provide credentials of value to students in left brain functions like accounting, we can stay ahead of the game. Eventually, if not sooner, online courses will be taught by Masters and PhD's from India and China. After all, we educated them and refused them a home  and a free life in the USA with a legal immigration document.

The next most important brainology thing I learned about our noggin, was this multiple intelligence perspective. Howard Garner developed much of it and many scholars have contributed to it's development.  Folks have various interests and talents in different areas. We reward the Logic and Word smart intelligences in almost all thing academic. We rave on those Music and Body smart when we go to concerts and ball games. Politicians make good on People smart and what would we do with out the aesthetic smart people with Picture and Nature to please our visual curiosity? Fact is we need people with smarts in all of these categories. Recognition and awards are needed for students with all of the various multiple intelligences. We reward those that pay great wages and craft good careers. What is your area of multiple intelligence that you do for love and not for pay?  For me it is nature intelligence. Growing plants and gardening is something I do for love and not for pay. I'd rather be gardening on a good day. Bicycling is body smart, and I would rather be on the bike than anything in the world.

Mama said ther'd be days like this,  ther'd be days like this.....

Singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious day the Lord had made and we drove right through it. Beautiful high ceiling clouds building white, grey, and black across the beautiful green plains of Illinois.

I love the look of the red barn against newly plowed fields in fresh spring time rains.

Nope that's not red barn on rolling fields that's the beach, the sun, and warm weather. I guess it will have to do. Heading over the river and through the woods to Moms house we go. I wonder if those bucolic red barns next to the classic white farm house have owners who long for pictures of the city?

Returning to my blog after a long break.

I am returning to my blog after a very long absence.

I went away so to speak. Buried my self by working full time as a CPA, finishing up a Master of Art in Educating Adults on the weekend and then topping that off with a MBA with some additional Master work in Accounting. I was overbooked and overworked. I managed to finish the program to change from a career in accounting to teaching accounting. I managed to see, nearly blind, my way through one of the most difficult relapses of my mild MS situation. Recovered and thanks be to God, I am back to full steam ahead. Well at least for another 7 to 8 years.

Looking back on the blogs from 2010, there are still postings that are very true and relevant still in 2015, 5 years later. Mom is now 85 and still the most devoted  lifelong learner I know. My electronic subscription to the New York Times came with a free Sunday delivery. You know that print version. I took NYT up on the deal and had the newspaper delivered to mom in Florida. She is a long  lost New Yorker and so far loves the Sunday edition. Mom considers the fashion section to be her "comic section."

Five years ago I entered the world of online learning with enthusiasm. Over the past 5 years, I have taught online and in person. Both are worthy of being legitimate learning  platforms. I took a MOOC from a Harvard Professor and had fellow students from all over the  world. Online learning is great for credentialing learning  from the informal world to the  formal world.

My research eventually supported the 80/20 rule relative to informal and formal learning. We actually do learn 80% of what we know from informal resources. Freebies if you like. We learn 20% of what we know from formal credentialed learning. Mostly paid for and sometimes overpaid for education.

It struck me that five years ago I said" If I were to really make an honest assessment I would say that character was a winner this year.  In the end, people can lose their business, lose property, lose wealth in a time like now.  But one thing is certain, the character, will and the intelligence that is the backbone of so many entrepreneurs in America is never lost.  Small business owners were smart people when they built their successful businesses and after these "Loss Years" , small business owners will still be smart capable people." This has become so true, so true. Some people might not see it that way and still maintain discriminatory practices against people who have experienced failure. But they will learn, hopefully, that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Till then, you have a  stronger case than those that discriminate.

Reflecting on the past year and the past five years, so much growth, so much learning, so much yet to do! I became the educated teacher of accounting and began to practice as a teacher. Funny how we say we are practicing a profession like Certified Public Accountant. We build a practice when we build our business or book of business. But to say we are practicing as a teacher, well that seems unprofessional. Should we practice on the lives of our college students?  I think that is why we like to call it research. Sounds more academic to research and employ continuous process improvement in the accreditation process.

Well this has just been an update to let you know I am back and do intend to keep posting my reflections on teaching and learning in accounting in this blog space. I will address topics like lifelong learning, problem based learning, competency based models, online learning, CPA Examination programs, and numerous other topics in accounting.