One: begin spending more than the revenue department takes in.
Two: begin printing money (or debasing the currency as it used to be called) to pay debt off with less valuable money.
Three: note how this distributes money from productive to non-productive sectors with varying degrees of corruption - more lobbyists in the court wanting more more more.
Four: begin bitching about rising prices and poor people losing their jobs and blame everyone else.
Five: instigate new policies to freeze rising prices to keep the poor happy and continue to blame everyone else.
Five: moan about rising interest payments on debt payments; begin blaming banks and the monied countries and refuse to recognise your declining credit rating (blame credit rating agencies).
Six: observe rising unemployment and get the flags and parades out to provide a patriotic focus - spend more money to keep the poor from throwing you out of office - roll out more welfare programmes.
Seven: print more money to pay for new expenditures keeping the poor from revolting (back to point 2 but now feel acceleration taking place ... downhill)
Eight: spend more money on police, since you feel the wind of change coming - lots on tear gas, riot shields, tazers and toys for the boys (and girls) in blue.
Nine: brain wave! distract the discontented with a justifiable war against quiet neighbour or distant country. Encourage much singing and patriotic music and nationalism or macho films involving superheroes and big muscly guys saving the world.
Ten: print money to pay for war.
Simple.
Now, where's your country on this scale? ...
Tuesday, 30 September 2014
Sunday, 13 July 2014
What are you worth? How to find out and improve your value.
What are you worth?
Most people will admit to wasting time –
it’s part of the human condition, the level of distractions, the
interruptions…we can’t help wasting time. Perhaps.
In some respects there’s nothing wrong with
goofing off and lazing around or just plainly recuperating – indeed, it is
healthy for us to book in down time so that we are more productive when we turn
to work. The problem is when we try to work and we are interrupted or
distracted.
Nonetheless, we can improve our
productivity. Hundreds, if not thousands, of books and websites are available
for advice on improving productivity.
Although they provide some excellent
methods which should be part of your move to become more productive,
philosophically and psychologically many remain superficial.
Consider a person who wants to lose weight.
We can give him or her a review of what
should be eaten and an exercise programme, but they mean nothing if there isn’t
a core reason to lose weight, something that resounds deep within the self .
The best starting point is what to consider
what you want to be. Start with that. Rather than saying, “When I lose weight,
I’ll be good looking or feel better,” you need to put the phrasing the other
way around and stick it into the present tense. “I am good looking and I feel
great about myself.”
Keep saying this to yourself and it will
teach you to follow the programmes and keep up that bit of discipline that’s
required to get you going … because you are
fit, you are good looking, you are slim.
We often get things the wrong way around.
Whether it is losing weight or being productive, we often put up a series of
hurdles or hazards even that we believe we must negotiate to get to where we
want.
But if you see yourself now as being more
productive, if you tell yourself constantly, I am a productive person, then you’re teaching yourself exactly what
you are … and so creating what you will be.
Being a productive person then allows you to learn properly from
all the productivity masters out there. The schemes of work are useless unless you’re prepared to take up the
strategies, which means you have to be
a productive person – now, in your head, in your conscious thinking, in your
subconscious mind for them to be of use.
There are techniques to help get you there
involving an array of psychological tools. I’m going to look at one here that I
have found useful.
Let’s start with a big question.
What am I worth?
Hmm. A million a year? Ten thousand a year?
Imagine there are no obstacles – no hurdles and no hazards – to your
achieving comfortable style of life.
What does that comfortable life look like?
Do you have a certain income, a car,
holidays abroad on a regular basis, kids in a certain school or being home
schooled, a healthy bank balance (a figure please)? Do you see yourself being
able to contribute money or time to your favourite hobbies or charities?
What do you see yourself doing in this
idyllic life?
See it, then believe you are living it now.
Then ask the question, okay, what am I now worth?
Imagine we can put a figure on it. You come
up with £60,000 annual salary.
(It doesn’t matter what you come up with,
I’m just using it as a figure. Some may want less, some more – it’s up to you,
but don’t short change yourself. And for those whose hands shoot up and say
that they’re not interested in money but in helping others, that’s fine – what
figure do you want to put on helping
people? Do you want to give £60,000 away annually in your dreams – or the
equivalent in a number of hours?)
If your ideal life involves earning, or
enjoying shall we say, £60,000 a year – that then gives you a figure to work
out your value.
The next thing is to book goofing off time.
Let’s say, Friday nights and Sundays are your chosen times to take off
completely from all professional and work related needs. Then add in your other
interests – playing sport on Wednesday evenings and Saturdays, say.
Now let’s focus on the ‘work time’ you will
be doing. You commute to work. You’re up at 7am, ablutions and breakfasting till 7.45, in the
car to work for 9, work till 5, get home at 6 at the latest. Sorted.
You’re in ‘work mode’ eleven hours.
You get three weeks holiday. So that means
you work 2695 hours a year. You want to earn £60,000 per annum. That means an
hourly rate of £60,000/2695 = £22.26 an
hour.
There’s your base line. Every hour of your
working time – commuting and breakfasting and lunching included, because in
that time you are tied to either going to work or being at work – is worth
£22.26.
Most people work on the hours that they are
engaged at the desk or machine: so someone on a £60,000 salary who calculates
that they are working 9-5, less an hour (so 7 hours a day on their reckoning),
three weeks off, five days a week – they calculate that they’re on £34.26 an hour.
They’re overestimating their value by a factor of 1.5, which may mean that they underestimate the cost of preparing for
work, being at work (in the lunchtime) and of course travelling. (I’ve not
added in commuter costs to keep things simple!)
So, is that what you’re currently earning?
Or is that now feasible? Two things come from this: you may be not currently
earning your dream salary or your may be earning it but could achieve more
(don’t undersell yourself!).
Let’s say you’re actually earning £8 an
hour. Yet your dream value is £22 and hour including all the hassle of getting
to work and being there. Is your value
nothing but a dream?
It depends – it might be if you don’t do
anything about it! It might be if you are unable to gain the skill base to take
you to that level. And this is where the reality kicks in. Not that you are
incapable of reaching your dream salary … but are you willing to take action to get there.
Taking action is much more important than
having a degree, a talent, a skill, rich parents, good neighbourhood, great
friends, winning the lottery, etc. Of course, all of the above can be helpful,
but if you don’t take the action to improve your skills, maintain family money,
choose your habitat carefully, etc., then you might not be doing yourself any
favours.
Let your value determine your current
actions.
When I work with students sitting exams, we
work from what grade they’d like to
get on a test – we go backwards from that to see what they will have to do to
get there. It’s often not as painful for them as they presumed.
Say they need to read 100 pages of a book
in three weeks. I give them two. So 100 pages in 14 days, that’s 7.14 pages a
day, call it eight and we’re ahead of schedule! Eight pages a day is usually quite feasible for most students and so the big hurdle has been reduced to a series of teeny ones.
You want to bring in extra money to reach
your ideal income (or wealth) level:
find out what you would need to do to earn that higher amount and then
take action today.
For instance, do you need to finish a
course or do a degree to earn more? Or do you need to cut unnecessary
expenditures to allow you to put more in an investment fund or into
cash-flowing assets such as property or businesses.
A great way of getting your head around
earning more money (rather than dreaming it) is to educate yourself. One of the
great places to start is Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich
Dad Poor Dad – and the ensuing
series. Dan Kennedy has a the classic No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs, which we can all learn from! And there’s also Michael Masterson’s The Reluctant Entrepreneur and one of my favourites: a subscription
to The Elevation Group – Mike and
Robert’s seminars and videos are second-to-none both in their content and their
ethics. All of the above have had a huge
impact both on my thinking and teaching – and, of course, doing something about
earning more money and living the dream! If you're in the UK, one of my coaches I highly recommend is John Dabrowski - he's sharpening my productivity skills: it's always good to have an outsider who can see what you're doing (or not doing as the case may be!).
Now you’ve worked out your current worth
and the value you want to enjoy, you can pick a programme that will help you
get there. Look at creating different income streams – setting up a part time
business on the weekend or online, investing in a business that could pay
dividends later, improving your education and skills so that you become
increasingly un-fireable as one writer puts it: make yourself indispensible. To
reach that goal will require first and foremost taking action – taking action
to get that education, learn about investments, and mixing with people who can
get you to where you want rather than hold you back.
But always begin with the end in mind.
Basic economics: oil markets and expected price changes
RISING OIL DEMAND EXPECTED IN 2015
ARTICLE
OPEC supplies were virtually unchanged in June at 30.03 million barrels per day (mb/d), as lower Iraqi production offset gains in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria and Angola. The ‘call’ on OPEC for 2H14 was cut by 350 000 barrels per day (350 kb/d) to 30.6 mb/d on improved non‐OPEC supply and lower demand, and is forecast to dip to 29.8 mb/d in 2015 from 29.9 mb/d in 2014.
Non‐OPEC supply is forecast to grow by 1.2 mb/d in 2015, down slightly on 2013 and 2014 forecast levels. Global supplies were largely unchanged month‐on‐month in June, at 92.6 mb/d, but 995 kb/d higher than a year ago. Annual non‐OPEC output growth of 1.7 mb/d more than offset OPEC declines of 765 kb/d.
Global oil demand growth is forecast to accelerate to 1.4 mb/d in 2015 from 1.2 mb/d in 2014, as macroeconomic conditions improve. The estimate of 2014 demand has been trimmed by 130 kb/d to 92.7 mb/d following weaker‐than‐expected mid‐year economic data.
SOURCE
INTRODUCTION OF THE PROBLEM:
The International Energy Agency monitors, amongst other things, oil supply and also projects changes in demand. In the article, overall supply of oil in the OPEC nations has not changed from the previous month at 30.03 mb/d although it notes that there was a relative shift in production from Iraq to Iran, Nigeria, Angola, and Saudi Arabia.
OPEC stands for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and consists of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuala. OPEC played a prominent role in the 1973 oil price hikes that caused the “Oil Crisis” tipping many countries into recession during the mid to late 1970s.
Non-OPEC supplies are set to increase to 1.2 mb/d into 2015. These include Brazil, the US, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Canada, Colombia, Norway, the UK, and Mexico.
Demand for oil is expected to increase from 1.4 bn per annum to 1.5 bn per annum, although the increase is less than initially expected due to reduced economic growth expectations.
APPLICATION OF POLICY FROM ARTICLE OR IMPLIED
Oil is renowned for its price inelasticity both in demand and in supply. Modern society is heavily dependent on its use for a range of uses from petro-chemicals through to fuels. When drawing the demand and supply curves, the inelasticity should be reflected in the steepness of the schedules:
As oil demand is expected to increase, we will expect the demand curve to shift to the right from 2014 to 2015. Likewise, we will expect the oil supply curve to shift to the right as non-Opec production is set to increase.
ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM USING ECONOMIC THEORY
The overall effect on oil prices over the coming year are difficult to predict. From basic theory, we know that both oil demand and supply are relatively price inelastic, so a shift in the demand for oil, say, will have a more than proportionate effect on the price. The same is true for a shift in supply – which helps to explain why oil prices can rise so swiftly when OPEC withholds supplies to the world market.
When both demand and supply are increasing, the overall effect on price will be less predictable than if only one aspect changes – this is because the two effects are countering each other: as demand increases, prices will rise; but as supply increases, prices will tend to fall.
EVALUATION OF THE ISSUE OR POLICIES
While the overall effects of simple moves in supply and demand are hard to predict, the influence of other issues create further problems analyzing the oil markets – particularly political issues. The OPEC nations attempt to act as a cartel so that they in effect act together to control the greater proportion of the world’s oil supplies. Concerted action on their part can have a huge impact on oil prices. Similarly, if one or more of the nations is engaged in warfare or undergoing a political upheaval – as is currently (summer 2014) happening in Iraq with the advance of ISIS rebels – then oil production may also be hit. Non-OPEC nations may also contribute to price instability, as recent events (2014) in the Ukraine with Russian intervention and annexation of the Crimea show.
Some analysts believe that the oil industry is heavily influenced by national – political – interests. These interfere with the workings of the market and thereby create unnecessary price distortions. Indubitably, energy production and consumption is heavily politicized with governments taxing, licensing, and controlling oil production and consumption as well as channeling funds and subsidies into complementary energy forms such as wind turbines.
The resulting fluctuations in price are exaggerated by the characteristic price inelasticities but these are not as random as some may fear. Markets are very adept at reducing the risks involved in trading and price fluctuations by engaging in futures contracts (agreeing on a price now for a supply later) and options (agreeing on a right to buy or sell at certain future date), but they would certainly be a lot calmer should there be less state intervention.
Monday, 7 July 2014
The benefits of one to one mentoring and tutoring
This is an older post from last year - I'm moving them from my old website over to the Blogger.
What is the difference between going to school and having a private tutor?
It's a bit like going to a gym: if you wander in by yourself you may feel intimidated and either lose heart or fall into classes and do what everyone else is doing... but having someone their to guide you and encourage you, to push you and to lay off when appropriate - that's how we get the best out of learning!
I invest in the services of Guy Baker, PT working from Nottingham (he's also on facebook!). During the sessions, I'm the learner rather than the guide and it's good for a tutor to put him or herself in the learning seat (or on the bench in my case) and feel how tough learning can be! The focus is 100% on what I can do and what I have to potential to do and that's how learning should be!
At the top universities in the world, tutorial time is based on a one-to-one or very small seminars: in our one to one sessions, the pupil is gaining that wonderful focus that is offered in the highest academic places in the world!
The greatest businessmen and women often refer to their mentors - one-to-one tuition in how to proceed and run a business.
No distractions from other people, no mass produced material imposed on the mind - one-to-one offers pure learning at its best.
In a class, the pupil is a fraction (one in twenty, say, but it can be one in thirty) which means the pupil only gets a fraction of the teacher's attention at the best of times.
In a lecture hall - and for several years I was an academic lecturer - the pupil is merely a sound board: the lecturer broadcasts the information with the hope that some of the attendees are paying attention some of the time. It may be a great ego boost for the deliver and there's certainly economies of scale in sharing knowledge with so many people all at one, but it's not an effective way of learning. Most of the audience is not engaged 100% all of the time. Indeed, it is very difficult to pay attention for longer than ten minutes at a time, although we can stay "one the job" by coming in and out of focus regularly.
With one-to-one, our attention is undivided and we can concentrate on what the pupil knows and what he or she needs to learn. From a teaching perspective, one-to-one cannot be beat - whether you're pushing weights, learning dance steps, improving calculus, advancing piano skills, practising comprehension - the intensity is 100%. And when the focus wanes, we can adapt swiftly and either take a break for a few moments or change what is being learned.
At school - even the best of them - cannot always deal with the individual in the way that personal mentorship can. I've learned so much under Guy's supervision but I've also learned so much with my pupils. I say to ours tutors - don't forget to learn with your pupil. It's a mutual and mutually beneficial process - it's great fun too!
Sunday, 8 June 2014
Seasonality and education: why summer holidays should be sacred to our children's development
It's been a while since my last posting - it's been the season of summer term exams and we have worked beyond our normal hours to cater for our students needs: we're alway happy to try and accommodate last minute panickers to ease their worries and provide some useful input but it has been a joy to see our regular pupils take the exams in their stride. Just like running a farm, you can't cram a harvest!
Indeed, like farming, our learning often goes through cycles. Moreover, it is because of farming that our learning is somewhat conditioned to go through cycles: we have a long summer holiday off from schools precisely because that was when the children of farming families were needed to work on the farm and prepare for the summer harvests. But as we have moved into a post-industrial age, the summer vacation has become a routine for all families with children to enjoy.
Not surprisingly, there are moves afoot to abandon the long holiday - and while the original reason for giving children a summer has gone, it would be inappropriate and unhealthy to take away one of childhood's last bastions of freedom.
A discussion between anthropology, psychology, and sociology may elicit a theory that we don't just shape the world around us but that the institutions we create similarly shape us. It's certainly true in my life as my work follows the school terms - I feel the surge to research and write more in the autumn and winter months when the academic terms recommence and the need to shut down my academic side in July and August. Children and families with school aged children follow the same rhythm, and while we can always alter the institutional frameworks and abandon the long summer holiday as a redundant vestige of the agricultural age, there are deeper reasons for not tying our children to institutional learning all year around.
The summer break can give children of all ages a magical time free of responsibilities and adult-led demands on their minds and personalities. For thirty six weeks - with intermittent tastes of freedom, children are jostled into institutionalised learning or what we call schooling. For many no doubt this is appropriate as these days both parents are economically obliged (by the state induced inflated costs of living) to work, and most people do see schooling as a necessary element to education: but during their time at school pupils are in turn conditioned to follow the rhythms of the school - proceeding from one class to another, one subject to another, learning the skills or knowledge that the somebody else far away (i.e. the committee members defining school curricula in state schools) believes that all children should learn. Sounds rather contrived when put like that ... and of course it is.
Summer holidays give children the time to be themselves and to pursue their own interests, hobbies, and sports - and it is amazing what many get up to in the holidays that then may become an essential passion in their lives: working with parents, gardening, reading for pleasure, going to outdoor concerts, exploring the coast or hills, playing sports all day in the local parks, building with construction kits, visiting museums, or just hanging out with friends and relaxing. It is a time when children turn to educate themselves.
I make a distinction between schooling and education. Schools impart knowledge through some form or other; education comes from the student - educere (Latin) means to lead out rather than to put in. Education revolves around our self-education, which can only truly take place when we are free to learn, free to discover and explore.
Education best takes place when you leave the children to run around on the beach discovering rock pools; schooling takes place when you ask them to write a report on what they did. For adults, our education is continuous and open-ended: I want to learn more about something, so I look it up, research it, and where appropriate, apply it to my life. That's education. If I need to prove I have completed a course in something for some reason or other, then I have to return to being schooled.
In a world (well, our culture in the UK) in which accountability and paper audits have become an integral part of schooling, it's not surprising that children's free time - the open-ended freedom of exploration and self-directed learning - is considered somehow suspect or dangerous. That children should be seen and reported on, tested and invigilated at all levels is the hidden premise of much of our present schooling - so young children are given homework: not to improve their particular minds and weaknesses, say, but just to keep them busy. Otherwise, they may run off and do their own thing, heaven forbid.
The same minds that encourage homework for all ages demand the incorporation of younger and younger children into institutions (childcare centres, pre-school)...and we must pause and ask why? But that's for another blog.
The other important reason for maintaining the long school breaks - apart from the magic of true education it can bring - is the health benefits of being outdoors. Solar medicine, as I call it, keeps away diseases of many forms according to researchers. In the northern climes, we suffer from a lack of sunlight during the late autumnal and winter months, so we particularly need spring and summer to recharge our vitamin D and to fill the lungs with fresh air and exercise!
I read a lot of research on health and nutrition but I'm not going to stray into the area of whether x and y supplements are good for your health or whether children should be wearing x factor sunscreen (no pun intended on becoming famous); but evolutionary biology and anthropology certainly indicate that our ancestors lived most of their days outdoors, using their muscles and exerting themselves regularly. It is said that the typical hunter-gatherer walks around 20 miles a day. We evolved outdoors and we need to get outside as much as possible. Despite modern civilisation's tendency to keep us indoors (work, gym, entertainment, travel), our bodies still need to get out there.
So on health and pedagogical grounds, let's defend those long summers!
Indeed, like farming, our learning often goes through cycles. Moreover, it is because of farming that our learning is somewhat conditioned to go through cycles: we have a long summer holiday off from schools precisely because that was when the children of farming families were needed to work on the farm and prepare for the summer harvests. But as we have moved into a post-industrial age, the summer vacation has become a routine for all families with children to enjoy.
Not surprisingly, there are moves afoot to abandon the long holiday - and while the original reason for giving children a summer has gone, it would be inappropriate and unhealthy to take away one of childhood's last bastions of freedom.
A discussion between anthropology, psychology, and sociology may elicit a theory that we don't just shape the world around us but that the institutions we create similarly shape us. It's certainly true in my life as my work follows the school terms - I feel the surge to research and write more in the autumn and winter months when the academic terms recommence and the need to shut down my academic side in July and August. Children and families with school aged children follow the same rhythm, and while we can always alter the institutional frameworks and abandon the long summer holiday as a redundant vestige of the agricultural age, there are deeper reasons for not tying our children to institutional learning all year around.
The summer break can give children of all ages a magical time free of responsibilities and adult-led demands on their minds and personalities. For thirty six weeks - with intermittent tastes of freedom, children are jostled into institutionalised learning or what we call schooling. For many no doubt this is appropriate as these days both parents are economically obliged (by the state induced inflated costs of living) to work, and most people do see schooling as a necessary element to education: but during their time at school pupils are in turn conditioned to follow the rhythms of the school - proceeding from one class to another, one subject to another, learning the skills or knowledge that the somebody else far away (i.e. the committee members defining school curricula in state schools) believes that all children should learn. Sounds rather contrived when put like that ... and of course it is.
Summer holidays give children the time to be themselves and to pursue their own interests, hobbies, and sports - and it is amazing what many get up to in the holidays that then may become an essential passion in their lives: working with parents, gardening, reading for pleasure, going to outdoor concerts, exploring the coast or hills, playing sports all day in the local parks, building with construction kits, visiting museums, or just hanging out with friends and relaxing. It is a time when children turn to educate themselves.
I make a distinction between schooling and education. Schools impart knowledge through some form or other; education comes from the student - educere (Latin) means to lead out rather than to put in. Education revolves around our self-education, which can only truly take place when we are free to learn, free to discover and explore.
Education best takes place when you leave the children to run around on the beach discovering rock pools; schooling takes place when you ask them to write a report on what they did. For adults, our education is continuous and open-ended: I want to learn more about something, so I look it up, research it, and where appropriate, apply it to my life. That's education. If I need to prove I have completed a course in something for some reason or other, then I have to return to being schooled.
In a world (well, our culture in the UK) in which accountability and paper audits have become an integral part of schooling, it's not surprising that children's free time - the open-ended freedom of exploration and self-directed learning - is considered somehow suspect or dangerous. That children should be seen and reported on, tested and invigilated at all levels is the hidden premise of much of our present schooling - so young children are given homework: not to improve their particular minds and weaknesses, say, but just to keep them busy. Otherwise, they may run off and do their own thing, heaven forbid.
The same minds that encourage homework for all ages demand the incorporation of younger and younger children into institutions (childcare centres, pre-school)...and we must pause and ask why? But that's for another blog.
The other important reason for maintaining the long school breaks - apart from the magic of true education it can bring - is the health benefits of being outdoors. Solar medicine, as I call it, keeps away diseases of many forms according to researchers. In the northern climes, we suffer from a lack of sunlight during the late autumnal and winter months, so we particularly need spring and summer to recharge our vitamin D and to fill the lungs with fresh air and exercise!
I read a lot of research on health and nutrition but I'm not going to stray into the area of whether x and y supplements are good for your health or whether children should be wearing x factor sunscreen (no pun intended on becoming famous); but evolutionary biology and anthropology certainly indicate that our ancestors lived most of their days outdoors, using their muscles and exerting themselves regularly. It is said that the typical hunter-gatherer walks around 20 miles a day. We evolved outdoors and we need to get outside as much as possible. Despite modern civilisation's tendency to keep us indoors (work, gym, entertainment, travel), our bodies still need to get out there.
So on health and pedagogical grounds, let's defend those long summers!
Sunday, 13 April 2014
Returning to childish enthusiasm
A child views the world with a sense of awe - a sense that there is so much to do, experience, accomplish, see, hear, taste, smell, interact with, join in with, and love that the eyes grow wide with wonder whenever anything new is presented.
They also know the secret that the great thinkers and achievers in our histories knew - that their mindset can change their world around them.
But as most of us 'mature', we become jaded and worked to the ground, we let life control us rather than control life. But look at the younger ones amongst us: children are always striving, or indeed battling, to gain control over their life - and we call them peevish, uncontrollable, out of order, unruly, or whatever epithet that basically says to them: kid, you can't have control over your life, because we don't - so knuckle down, tow the line, don't rock the boat, do as we do, and basically shut up and put up.
Let's look at it differently. Our children have something deep to teach us - that we can return to that innate curiosity and excitement and wonder the child naturally possesses.
The most wonderful aspect of being human is our deep curious instinct. We seek to learn - and indeed cannot help learning and improving: within the first three years of our lives, we learn about how this world works, we learn how to walk, and we even master our home language. Our learning curve is intense - and we do not give up. We continue to press on with our learning and we slowly gain mastery over many aspects of life so we can eventually stand by ourselves, hold a conversation, express our feelings, walk, run, dress ourselves ... continually we are striving to better ourselves.The child's appetite for learning is insatiable.
To the adult mind, however, what children learn is childish - simple stuff that we have long learned and passed by, something necessary to learn but too simplistic to repeat; so we make the mistake of looking down upon our children as young apprentices having to go through the routine modes of learning to turn over, sit up, crawl, to pick things up, taste them, grasp and touch things, through to gabble talk, recognition and responses, through to toys and play. We miss the bigger picture that our children are driven by their curiosity and their intention to improve their lives - to gain mastery over their circle of influence (parents and toys included!).
And much of children's learning takes place through play. Play is horrendously underestimated as a tool for learning. When flying to another country, we are often asked: "are you entering the country for reasons of pleasure or work?" Is there a difference? Shouldn't our work be pleasurable? And sometimes we may have to work at our pleasure to get more out of it. Yet we create a dichotomy and condition ourselves and our children to think of work as work (i.e., something painful and best avoided) and play as play.
In a sense, I am playing at writing - I love writing and creating a flow of words in front of my eyes; a concert pianist plays the notes...a trader plays at the stock market, a lawyer plays at being the lawyer. Sure, there's professionalism in the exercise and the execution of the performance or duties, because playing does not imply random, whimsical movements: children's games often converge onto specific modes of playing with strict rules, just as an adult's professional game involves sticking to strictly defined rules and strategies ... but with a great deal of adaptation too.
Children are getting their best education when they are at play - with one another and by themselves in their own creative worlds. When we look upon work as drudgery, we are certainly missing something. Many people do not like their work for a variety of reasons - according to an international Gallup survey, 14% of Europeans feel satisfied or engaged with their work: so 86% are not content.
What went wrong? Perhaps much of it has to do with the imposed division between work and play: we in the West are keen to create binary debates (nature versus nurture, men versus women, work versus play) when the reality is much more complex. But by imposing a view that there is either work or play, we are conditioning a belief system that work cannot be play. We also are thusly conditioned to believe that learning must be a form of work - surely, learning cannot be enjoyable? When we learn or work with humour or through having fun, people often frown or make sardonic comments - reflecting perhaps a deep seated belief that learning cannot be enjoyable because it wasn't for them.
Why wasn't it?
Arguably, because we are taught to learn things that are not part of our interests or which we are not ready for. I meet many pupils of all ages and abilities who have been burned by being taught too much too soon, or forced to do subjects when they have no interest in them. Our politicians (and of course self-interested educational groups) want our children to learn even more at even earlier ages, thereby refusing to understand the surveys that point to English children being amongst the unhappiest in Europe. Dutch children, in contrast, have no exam pressures under the age of 11 - they go to school to enjoy learning...there are other variables, but I seriously wonder about our advisers' motives when they ignore other countries' children excelling and being happier when they don't attend school so early or when they do not have scholarly pressures to prove something to someone else at such a young age.
When I investigate why a particular averagely intelligent pupil is disengaged at school, I often find that it relates to academic pressures foisted on them at an early age. X hated writing - when was he forced to start? At the age of three! Y hates reading - "why do I need to read?" His parents encouraged his reading through bribery and force: you must do your reading! Z gets incredibly nervous doing maths - his school has knock out mental maths tests in which the children stand up and have a few seconds to answer a question. Stress causes our brains not to work well and we are then left with a bad taste of perennial failure. (When parents express concern over their child's ability to do these humiliating tests, we often quickly ask the parent what is the answer to "Times 6 by 7 divide by 2 and add three to your answer...come on!" They usually crumble and get the point.)
In dividing play from learning - we simultaneously separate play from work. Is it any surprise that so many adults just consider their profession or work "as a job." Something to do to pay the bills. One of my oldest friends, Huw, was stuck in a supermarket "job", not going anywhere and not really excited about it (which is not to say that you can't excited about a supermarket job of course, but for him, it wasn't right). When I asked him what he really wanted to do, his answer presented a very different vision: he wanted to sing opera. Well, why not take some lessons, I asked? So he did, and that led to acting and that led to a role in a soap opera and other performances around the country's theatres. Much happier bunny!
Other times, the conversation has revolved more around the skill set that the pupil is offering. Against academic pressures "to do well" or "to go to university", the pupil seems thoroughly turned off learning at the level required - they hate revision and exams with a passion. Other passions are there though - and by allowing them to surface and discussed openly, I've enjoyed seeing quite a few students find a more rewarding path, and hopefully enjoy their profession or work and be more authentic people.
Some clients I've met (i.e., parents), are unhappy in their work and express it. "I don't know anyone who likes their job," said one executive to my wife and I once. We both responded at the same time, "I do!" You should have seen his face. As a friend commented, he looked as if he was chewing a wasp all the time. Great phrase! Reading between the lines for many older people though, the thought of giving up their profession is countered by the thought of the money that they are earning: some are explicit about it, such as a Head of department where I once worked who expressed his "jealousy" that I was heading off to work for myself, as he was "tied to his job because of the pension rights..."
On his death bed, would he lie pleased with the extra years he worked in a job he no longer enjoyed?
My work is very satisfying. I get to learn new things each week and apply skills I've picked up in new and interesting situations (new pupils, new challenges): I am and enjoy being thoroughly and authentically engaged with the pupil and there are so many rewards to seeing young people develop. And as we're going along, I explain that school and work need not be tedious or laborious and that it's highly advisable to work at something they enjoy; sure there are always some chores to do but when they are viewed in the bigger scheme of things, exams and book-keeping or whatnot become an essential part of the whole - and it is to the whole that we should always turn and keep focused on - our primer aims and passions!
When we end up doing things we do not like, our passion begins to diminish and we forget what we were supposed to be doing all along: we become another employed zombie just going through the routine of daily living.
When people find work a chore - a drudgery - what message are they telling themselves? That they are not worth better? That their passions or interests do not matter? That earning money is more important than being happy? (Funnily enough, research indicates that happier people tend to earn more money...) That who they are is of no importance? And what message do they then give their children - work hard at school, do well in exams, knuckle down and put up with the tests...because then you too can have a job like mine and be as miserable and frustrated.
I've forged a profession suitable to my interests and passions - learning and passing on that learning; my children know that I enjoy my work - they see a happy daddy, a daddy who gives his clients full attention, as I in turn give my children full attention and share knowledge with them. I know that I am in a privileged position relative to the 86% who are unhappy at work. But you know - it's not luck, it's how I view my work: at times I am like a kid constantly desiring to learn more and to share that learning widely. I retain an open, curious mind to new knowledge (and that, the psychologists tell us keeps us mentally and physically younger!). I shudder at St Paul's comment that he "put away childish things" (Corinthians 1:13) when he became an adult - he must have become a bore thereafter! On the other hand, in the Christian tradition - which still underpins much of our culture - Christ said "Let the children alone, and let them come to me..." and "unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven..." (Matt 19:14; Matt, 18:13) There's a powerful message therein. For heaven read heaven or happiness...according to your beliefs.
Being an adult brings with it responsibilities - but even those need not depress us or be such a burden as to wipe the smile from our face. By prioritising what must be done with respect to what we'd like to do and keeping a tab on what we actually do, we can see where we may be going wrong and thereby improve how we work - there may be aspects of our work that are enjoyable and satisfying. I love the Zig Ziglar story of a surly waiter attending on him with very poor service. "You don't like your job, do you?" he asked the young man. "No, I hate it," was the reply. "Well, that's okay, because you won't have it for much longer." He then relates that the young man went back into the kitchens and returned with a very different demeanour and a smile!
When we change our perspective, we can begin to enjoy what we see as burdensome or painful.
When we shed the binary characterisations of life - that it's work or play, we can review our life through a different window: we can see our chores as enjoyable elements to see through and finish (daily in terms of washing, weekly in terms of cleaning the house, say, annually in paying taxes due...). But we can also review where we are with regards to what we really want.
When I watch my elder boy, I see the intent focus that he gives his play: for him, it is seriously enjoyable ... or enjoyably serious. The focus is enviable - nothing else matters, the entire world is his and controlled by him and his mind. Therein lies the secret that Napoleon Hill uncovered in his research on successful people: "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
It is vision - and enthusiasm for that vision - that propels the great, that lifts the mediocre out of their rut, that gets people out of poverty and hardship; it is that childishness that once fired our dreams and obsessions and the belief that anything is possible. The jaded adult shrugs bitterly, reflecting on his or her lost dreams and returns to the mantra passed down the generations that childish dreams are not meant to be taken seriously. But we have the power to block the naysayer, the doom merchant, the despondent and pathetic and rekindle the fire that once lit our bellies with passion. We have the right to listen to our dreams and we have the right to strive for them. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the greatest tragedy is that most people go to their grave with their music still in them.
Wow!
Let's listen to our music again - let's find out what we were really were about once upon a time.
Write down ten things you want to do or see or achieve.
Then write down how and when you're going to do them.
Create a vision board of your future - with the primary value centred or arching over the top as the most important purpose you have.
Then act upon those dreams and live your authentic life...
They also know the secret that the great thinkers and achievers in our histories knew - that their mindset can change their world around them.
But as most of us 'mature', we become jaded and worked to the ground, we let life control us rather than control life. But look at the younger ones amongst us: children are always striving, or indeed battling, to gain control over their life - and we call them peevish, uncontrollable, out of order, unruly, or whatever epithet that basically says to them: kid, you can't have control over your life, because we don't - so knuckle down, tow the line, don't rock the boat, do as we do, and basically shut up and put up.
Let's look at it differently. Our children have something deep to teach us - that we can return to that innate curiosity and excitement and wonder the child naturally possesses.
http://experitest.com/tester-embrace-your-inner-child-today/
The most wonderful aspect of being human is our deep curious instinct. We seek to learn - and indeed cannot help learning and improving: within the first three years of our lives, we learn about how this world works, we learn how to walk, and we even master our home language. Our learning curve is intense - and we do not give up. We continue to press on with our learning and we slowly gain mastery over many aspects of life so we can eventually stand by ourselves, hold a conversation, express our feelings, walk, run, dress ourselves ... continually we are striving to better ourselves.The child's appetite for learning is insatiable.
To the adult mind, however, what children learn is childish - simple stuff that we have long learned and passed by, something necessary to learn but too simplistic to repeat; so we make the mistake of looking down upon our children as young apprentices having to go through the routine modes of learning to turn over, sit up, crawl, to pick things up, taste them, grasp and touch things, through to gabble talk, recognition and responses, through to toys and play. We miss the bigger picture that our children are driven by their curiosity and their intention to improve their lives - to gain mastery over their circle of influence (parents and toys included!).
And much of children's learning takes place through play. Play is horrendously underestimated as a tool for learning. When flying to another country, we are often asked: "are you entering the country for reasons of pleasure or work?" Is there a difference? Shouldn't our work be pleasurable? And sometimes we may have to work at our pleasure to get more out of it. Yet we create a dichotomy and condition ourselves and our children to think of work as work (i.e., something painful and best avoided) and play as play.
In a sense, I am playing at writing - I love writing and creating a flow of words in front of my eyes; a concert pianist plays the notes...a trader plays at the stock market, a lawyer plays at being the lawyer. Sure, there's professionalism in the exercise and the execution of the performance or duties, because playing does not imply random, whimsical movements: children's games often converge onto specific modes of playing with strict rules, just as an adult's professional game involves sticking to strictly defined rules and strategies ... but with a great deal of adaptation too.
Children are getting their best education when they are at play - with one another and by themselves in their own creative worlds. When we look upon work as drudgery, we are certainly missing something. Many people do not like their work for a variety of reasons - according to an international Gallup survey, 14% of Europeans feel satisfied or engaged with their work: so 86% are not content.
What went wrong? Perhaps much of it has to do with the imposed division between work and play: we in the West are keen to create binary debates (nature versus nurture, men versus women, work versus play) when the reality is much more complex. But by imposing a view that there is either work or play, we are conditioning a belief system that work cannot be play. We also are thusly conditioned to believe that learning must be a form of work - surely, learning cannot be enjoyable? When we learn or work with humour or through having fun, people often frown or make sardonic comments - reflecting perhaps a deep seated belief that learning cannot be enjoyable because it wasn't for them.
Why wasn't it?
Arguably, because we are taught to learn things that are not part of our interests or which we are not ready for. I meet many pupils of all ages and abilities who have been burned by being taught too much too soon, or forced to do subjects when they have no interest in them. Our politicians (and of course self-interested educational groups) want our children to learn even more at even earlier ages, thereby refusing to understand the surveys that point to English children being amongst the unhappiest in Europe. Dutch children, in contrast, have no exam pressures under the age of 11 - they go to school to enjoy learning...there are other variables, but I seriously wonder about our advisers' motives when they ignore other countries' children excelling and being happier when they don't attend school so early or when they do not have scholarly pressures to prove something to someone else at such a young age.
When I investigate why a particular averagely intelligent pupil is disengaged at school, I often find that it relates to academic pressures foisted on them at an early age. X hated writing - when was he forced to start? At the age of three! Y hates reading - "why do I need to read?" His parents encouraged his reading through bribery and force: you must do your reading! Z gets incredibly nervous doing maths - his school has knock out mental maths tests in which the children stand up and have a few seconds to answer a question. Stress causes our brains not to work well and we are then left with a bad taste of perennial failure. (When parents express concern over their child's ability to do these humiliating tests, we often quickly ask the parent what is the answer to "Times 6 by 7 divide by 2 and add three to your answer...come on!" They usually crumble and get the point.)
In dividing play from learning - we simultaneously separate play from work. Is it any surprise that so many adults just consider their profession or work "as a job." Something to do to pay the bills. One of my oldest friends, Huw, was stuck in a supermarket "job", not going anywhere and not really excited about it (which is not to say that you can't excited about a supermarket job of course, but for him, it wasn't right). When I asked him what he really wanted to do, his answer presented a very different vision: he wanted to sing opera. Well, why not take some lessons, I asked? So he did, and that led to acting and that led to a role in a soap opera and other performances around the country's theatres. Much happier bunny!
Other times, the conversation has revolved more around the skill set that the pupil is offering. Against academic pressures "to do well" or "to go to university", the pupil seems thoroughly turned off learning at the level required - they hate revision and exams with a passion. Other passions are there though - and by allowing them to surface and discussed openly, I've enjoyed seeing quite a few students find a more rewarding path, and hopefully enjoy their profession or work and be more authentic people.
Some clients I've met (i.e., parents), are unhappy in their work and express it. "I don't know anyone who likes their job," said one executive to my wife and I once. We both responded at the same time, "I do!" You should have seen his face. As a friend commented, he looked as if he was chewing a wasp all the time. Great phrase! Reading between the lines for many older people though, the thought of giving up their profession is countered by the thought of the money that they are earning: some are explicit about it, such as a Head of department where I once worked who expressed his "jealousy" that I was heading off to work for myself, as he was "tied to his job because of the pension rights..."
On his death bed, would he lie pleased with the extra years he worked in a job he no longer enjoyed?
My work is very satisfying. I get to learn new things each week and apply skills I've picked up in new and interesting situations (new pupils, new challenges): I am and enjoy being thoroughly and authentically engaged with the pupil and there are so many rewards to seeing young people develop. And as we're going along, I explain that school and work need not be tedious or laborious and that it's highly advisable to work at something they enjoy; sure there are always some chores to do but when they are viewed in the bigger scheme of things, exams and book-keeping or whatnot become an essential part of the whole - and it is to the whole that we should always turn and keep focused on - our primer aims and passions!
When we end up doing things we do not like, our passion begins to diminish and we forget what we were supposed to be doing all along: we become another employed zombie just going through the routine of daily living.
When people find work a chore - a drudgery - what message are they telling themselves? That they are not worth better? That their passions or interests do not matter? That earning money is more important than being happy? (Funnily enough, research indicates that happier people tend to earn more money...) That who they are is of no importance? And what message do they then give their children - work hard at school, do well in exams, knuckle down and put up with the tests...because then you too can have a job like mine and be as miserable and frustrated.
I've forged a profession suitable to my interests and passions - learning and passing on that learning; my children know that I enjoy my work - they see a happy daddy, a daddy who gives his clients full attention, as I in turn give my children full attention and share knowledge with them. I know that I am in a privileged position relative to the 86% who are unhappy at work. But you know - it's not luck, it's how I view my work: at times I am like a kid constantly desiring to learn more and to share that learning widely. I retain an open, curious mind to new knowledge (and that, the psychologists tell us keeps us mentally and physically younger!). I shudder at St Paul's comment that he "put away childish things" (Corinthians 1:13) when he became an adult - he must have become a bore thereafter! On the other hand, in the Christian tradition - which still underpins much of our culture - Christ said "Let the children alone, and let them come to me..." and "unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven..." (Matt 19:14; Matt, 18:13) There's a powerful message therein. For heaven read heaven or happiness...according to your beliefs.
Being an adult brings with it responsibilities - but even those need not depress us or be such a burden as to wipe the smile from our face. By prioritising what must be done with respect to what we'd like to do and keeping a tab on what we actually do, we can see where we may be going wrong and thereby improve how we work - there may be aspects of our work that are enjoyable and satisfying. I love the Zig Ziglar story of a surly waiter attending on him with very poor service. "You don't like your job, do you?" he asked the young man. "No, I hate it," was the reply. "Well, that's okay, because you won't have it for much longer." He then relates that the young man went back into the kitchens and returned with a very different demeanour and a smile!
When we change our perspective, we can begin to enjoy what we see as burdensome or painful.
When we shed the binary characterisations of life - that it's work or play, we can review our life through a different window: we can see our chores as enjoyable elements to see through and finish (daily in terms of washing, weekly in terms of cleaning the house, say, annually in paying taxes due...). But we can also review where we are with regards to what we really want.
When I watch my elder boy, I see the intent focus that he gives his play: for him, it is seriously enjoyable ... or enjoyably serious. The focus is enviable - nothing else matters, the entire world is his and controlled by him and his mind. Therein lies the secret that Napoleon Hill uncovered in his research on successful people: "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
It is vision - and enthusiasm for that vision - that propels the great, that lifts the mediocre out of their rut, that gets people out of poverty and hardship; it is that childishness that once fired our dreams and obsessions and the belief that anything is possible. The jaded adult shrugs bitterly, reflecting on his or her lost dreams and returns to the mantra passed down the generations that childish dreams are not meant to be taken seriously. But we have the power to block the naysayer, the doom merchant, the despondent and pathetic and rekindle the fire that once lit our bellies with passion. We have the right to listen to our dreams and we have the right to strive for them. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the greatest tragedy is that most people go to their grave with their music still in them.
Wow!
Let's listen to our music again - let's find out what we were really were about once upon a time.
Write down ten things you want to do or see or achieve.
Then write down how and when you're going to do them.
Create a vision board of your future - with the primary value centred or arching over the top as the most important purpose you have.
Then act upon those dreams and live your authentic life...
Thursday, 3 April 2014
The power of labelling - and a note on smiling!
Educationally labelling another individual is one of the most insidious things we can do. By labelling, I mean providing an adjectival description of the educational ability or potential of the pupil. However, as we'll see, the label rarely creates potential and progression, it creates regression.
Many students come to us for one-to-one attention with a label that is cast out by their parents or themselves before we have even assessed their skills. It's quite unnerving at times when a young person sits down and says, "I'm dyslexic," or "I've got ADHD," or "I'm not good at exams," or the worst - usually proferred by a parent: "He's (or she's) really clever," or "gifted and talented."
Labels smother the child's abilities - just as pernicious sexist and racist labelling has undermine people's chances, educational labels diminish the individual's ability to progress. A label freezes the brain - it tells the pupil that he or she is irrevocably handicapped and cannot improve.
The proposition is literally chaining our students to artificial posts and leaving them slaves to a label.
Research has shown that labelling children "smart" creates fear, and thwarts the possibility of improvement. The label acts against the pupil's ability to act and can even become a life long scar that hinders potentiality. The smart, it has been shown, when faced with a difficult task prefer to engage in displacement activity. They suddenly find the task "boring" or effect no interest in it. In reality, they are realise that they are not that smart, or not so smart in all areas, or that what they once found easy they no longer do ... and they panic, avoid the more difficult work in case their results undermine the pretence, or they cheat. More often, smart students are more concerned with how they are faring against others rather than with the task at hand. Their motivation is to have others pleased with them - after all, the label came from without, so it is from without that they look for guidance and acknowledgement. In other words, their values come from without, rather than from within themselves. The pupil looks to the teacher, to the parent, to the peers - and thus for bribes, for money, for recognition.
Psychologists call seeking external approval having an "external locus of control" and is used to describe when a person looks outside of themselves for some form of validation, either intellectual or moral. In contrast, the healthier "internal locus of control" reflects the ability of an individual to be self-motivating, strong in their personal values, confident in their ability to develop, learn, and grow, and strong enough to ignore peer pressure of what other people think of them. In terms of educational techniques, students who have a greater sense of internal strength are more likely to stick to a task, use their own mind, and, thereby, improve steadily. They can rely on their inner strength - their innere Fuehrung - as the modern German Wehrmacht calls it (inner leadership).
In one-to-one work, dealing with the smart can be challenging for the tutor! The smart are severely handicapped in their ability to think for themselves: they have trouble focusing and often demand the reasons why they should do a certain task (which looks hard at first glance, say). They are saying to themselves, "Why do I need to put myself through this pain?" or perhaps "What would I really be if I failed to do this properly?" Their work tends to be minimalistic, as I call it - a few pen marks on the paper to solve a maths question (i.e., no working out, no process, just a hurried answer). And their English skills are often lacking - writing a sentence is painful, spelling can be too challenging ... their calligraphy is small to hide the burgeoning errors in their work. They are locked in an early skill set and cannot get out - because they were called "smart" or "gifted."
Well, we're all gifted. We're alive, and that's one heaven of a gift to enjoy. But we can make life even more impressive if we work at it. Strangling a young person with a label is no gift - it's a chain.
There are no rewards in our tutorials - no praise, no "oh, you're so smart!" comments, no chocolates or money or promises of dvds or computer games. Just sheer mental exercising. Slowly, we take the "smart" and teach them that they too can struggle, that it's normal to struggle, that there is a great sense of achievement and pleasure in actually working at problems rather than just getting them (or not). It's the same with those who come in with the negative labels such as dyslexia. Truth be told, we're all weak at some things in life and great at others - and the weak things, we can always work harder at and improve with the right tools and great motivation.
We love working with pupils of all ages and abilities - and it's tragic how some get labelled early and how that affects them as adults.
Now, I promised to leave my posts on a positive light: rip off the label and get your own personality back; own yourself and your thoughts rather than let other people tell you what's wrong with you. We're all great and lovely and fun and we can all improve what we do! It's fun too to stretch the brain - and the brain can be stretched in more ways than what our educational curricula offer: see the article I wrote on the multiple intelligences.
Another parting ditty:
Over the past few days I've been testing the mirror nerves our brains possesses: smiling at strangers wherever I go - and yep, those who catch my gaze smile back. Just a small step for making the planet a little more beautiful! Try it - it's great fun - so many return the smile! Takes a second, but boosts our feel-good chemicals!
http://www.mazapoint.com/category/smile-quotes
Many students come to us for one-to-one attention with a label that is cast out by their parents or themselves before we have even assessed their skills. It's quite unnerving at times when a young person sits down and says, "I'm dyslexic," or "I've got ADHD," or "I'm not good at exams," or the worst - usually proferred by a parent: "He's (or she's) really clever," or "gifted and talented."
Labels smother the child's abilities - just as pernicious sexist and racist labelling has undermine people's chances, educational labels diminish the individual's ability to progress. A label freezes the brain - it tells the pupil that he or she is irrevocably handicapped and cannot improve.
The proposition is literally chaining our students to artificial posts and leaving them slaves to a label.
Research has shown that labelling children "smart" creates fear, and thwarts the possibility of improvement. The label acts against the pupil's ability to act and can even become a life long scar that hinders potentiality. The smart, it has been shown, when faced with a difficult task prefer to engage in displacement activity. They suddenly find the task "boring" or effect no interest in it. In reality, they are realise that they are not that smart, or not so smart in all areas, or that what they once found easy they no longer do ... and they panic, avoid the more difficult work in case their results undermine the pretence, or they cheat. More often, smart students are more concerned with how they are faring against others rather than with the task at hand. Their motivation is to have others pleased with them - after all, the label came from without, so it is from without that they look for guidance and acknowledgement. In other words, their values come from without, rather than from within themselves. The pupil looks to the teacher, to the parent, to the peers - and thus for bribes, for money, for recognition.
Psychologists call seeking external approval having an "external locus of control" and is used to describe when a person looks outside of themselves for some form of validation, either intellectual or moral. In contrast, the healthier "internal locus of control" reflects the ability of an individual to be self-motivating, strong in their personal values, confident in their ability to develop, learn, and grow, and strong enough to ignore peer pressure of what other people think of them. In terms of educational techniques, students who have a greater sense of internal strength are more likely to stick to a task, use their own mind, and, thereby, improve steadily. They can rely on their inner strength - their innere Fuehrung - as the modern German Wehrmacht calls it (inner leadership).
In one-to-one work, dealing with the smart can be challenging for the tutor! The smart are severely handicapped in their ability to think for themselves: they have trouble focusing and often demand the reasons why they should do a certain task (which looks hard at first glance, say). They are saying to themselves, "Why do I need to put myself through this pain?" or perhaps "What would I really be if I failed to do this properly?" Their work tends to be minimalistic, as I call it - a few pen marks on the paper to solve a maths question (i.e., no working out, no process, just a hurried answer). And their English skills are often lacking - writing a sentence is painful, spelling can be too challenging ... their calligraphy is small to hide the burgeoning errors in their work. They are locked in an early skill set and cannot get out - because they were called "smart" or "gifted."
Well, we're all gifted. We're alive, and that's one heaven of a gift to enjoy. But we can make life even more impressive if we work at it. Strangling a young person with a label is no gift - it's a chain.
There are no rewards in our tutorials - no praise, no "oh, you're so smart!" comments, no chocolates or money or promises of dvds or computer games. Just sheer mental exercising. Slowly, we take the "smart" and teach them that they too can struggle, that it's normal to struggle, that there is a great sense of achievement and pleasure in actually working at problems rather than just getting them (or not). It's the same with those who come in with the negative labels such as dyslexia. Truth be told, we're all weak at some things in life and great at others - and the weak things, we can always work harder at and improve with the right tools and great motivation.
We love working with pupils of all ages and abilities - and it's tragic how some get labelled early and how that affects them as adults.
Now, I promised to leave my posts on a positive light: rip off the label and get your own personality back; own yourself and your thoughts rather than let other people tell you what's wrong with you. We're all great and lovely and fun and we can all improve what we do! It's fun too to stretch the brain - and the brain can be stretched in more ways than what our educational curricula offer: see the article I wrote on the multiple intelligences.
Another parting ditty:
Over the past few days I've been testing the mirror nerves our brains possesses: smiling at strangers wherever I go - and yep, those who catch my gaze smile back. Just a small step for making the planet a little more beautiful! Try it - it's great fun - so many return the smile! Takes a second, but boosts our feel-good chemicals!
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