Be on higher ground

Leaders' Lounge. 

The position of leadership is one which demands commitment, dedication and service amongst other things. In fact, leadership makes all manner of demands on the ones who have chosen or have been pushed to tread its path, constantly and ceaselessly. 

Leaders must therefore learn to dig deep within and be brutally honest with themselves in what they believe and what they stand for. It requires humility and transparency to acknowledge one’s strengths, as well as one’s weaknesses. 

Armed with this introspection, leaders must endeavour to lead with positive practices for the right reasons of which includes virtuousness or an abundance culture.

Be informed.
Build yourself up.
Find replenishment for when you suffer burn outs.
Stack up a wall of knowledge and applicable wisdom.

As a leader, you can only bring people up if you are standing on higher ground first.

Leaders And Teachers: Same Boat.

Once you get involved in education, you are directly connected to leadership. Making decisions that will affect learners, raising leaders, supporting leaders and providing a leeway for them.

Then, once you become a leader, you will be again directed back to education. Making decision that will affect others, working to build both brand and your team, assisting both peers and subordinates.

The challenges might sometimes differ, but, no matter what anybody says, teachers are leaders and leaders are teachers.

How I Got Into Coaching And Why I Love It.

Teaching is a job I stumbled into. I grew to love it for many reasons, which I will not get into now. And, as with everything I do, I gave it my all. Subsequently, I became a teacher leader. I was named pedagogic coordinator and supervisor. Both students and teachers became my responsibility. A responsibility I took very seriously. And, I watched them grow and get better. The pride I felt and still do feel is another story.

Several years after, I moved from the classroom to the corporate world.  I made the transition from working with young learners and started working with professionals in management positions. It was both exciting and challenging.

My students were mostly looking to improve their communication skills using English As A Foreign Language.
My classes were typically held in the client's office and we mostly talked about whatever they wanted to talk about and my job involved helping them acquire fluency and accuracy in expressing themselves in English. I was generally expected to clarify formal and informal communication skills amongst other things. It was common for clients to request "classes" just before an important meeting or conference call and sometimes, they would call me after the meeting to tell me how things went.
Sometimes, they would discuss situations they were facing. They discussed their frustrations and achievements. I am a good listener, so I listened. I am also very inquisitive, so sometimes I asked questions. And, I found that as they responded to my questions, they seemed to find certain answers for themselves. Sometimes, I shared experiences or something that I had read or learnt somewhere.
I never told any of them what to do, but in the 6 years I have worked in that field, I did not have one unhappy "student".  As a matter of fact, to this day, I still get referrals.

It is a job I enjoyed tremendously and whenever I find the time, I always find myself signing up one or two clients.  That experience provided me with untold insights into the lives and needs of executives. I learnt a lot about management and leadership.
Some people have told me that I have a natural flair for this awesome job as a coach, but I very humbly admit that I didn't realise it until I found myself in a place where it was brought out of me. I am sure that there are people who discovered very early on that they were gifted in that department. I am not one of those people. I know that there are coaches who knew it was a "calling" they had from the very start. I can not claim that. But I do know that, since my attention was drawn to this innate capability, I do not want to stop.
With all that I learnt, and all that I am still learning, I have made yet another transition. This time from teacher to coach, which, when I think about it, is almost exactly the same thing.
Now, I am better positioned to help every executive and leader of industry that chooses to work with me to ask themselves the questions that will aid them in finding the answers they might not  even know they have. I do not have all the answers, but I do have a lot of the questions.
There are many challenges involved. The setbacks are innumerable. But, who wants to count setbacks? I am a Coach and I absolutely love this job!

It would be great to read about how you got into coaching.

Fighting For "The Kids"

Several days ago, a blog post by Valeria Strauss published in The Washington Post went viral, at least among educators. If you didn't see it, read it here.
I read it and loved it. There were so many things she said that needed to be said.
But, I believe that not much is going to change. Parents are going to continue to fight for their "kid" and teachers are going to continue to defend their "kids".
There was a time when I was a teacher working with young learners and I was privy to the many intricacies involved in the relationship between teacher and parents and how kids are most often caught in the middle.
I've heard parents blame teachers for anything perceived as undesired results in their kids and I've seen teachers do the same. I am pretty sure I might have done the same on a number of occasion.
But the truth is that in most cases, both teachers and parents have their kids best interests at heart. Both parties would do their best to get the best possible results for their kids. They will defend their kids by all means necessary. The will fight to death anyone that questions their authority and good will towards their kids.
Nevertheless, parents usually fight for the interest of one/two/three/four children or whatever the number of children they have and teachers will have to fight for a larger number of children.

Sometimes, it is not a fair fight.
Sometimes, sentiments will be hurt.
Sometimes, somebody will be offended.
Sometimes, they might not have all the information, but they will fight anyway.
I understood that all of it is part of the rules of the trade and I told myself that as an educator who is passionate about the positive development of "my kids", I will only concern myself with doing that which I am convinced is the best for them, based on all information at my disposal.
As long as "the kids" are not negatively affected, as long as "the kids" continue to benefit and develop positively, then it's ok for both parents and teachers to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

The Many Joys Of Being A Teacher.

There are many challenges facing educators, 

often including and not limited to government policies, fundings, salaries, over-populated classes, disruptive students, unhelpful and criticising parents and a lack of supplies. But for any teacher worth his or her salt, dealing with these and other stressors is totally worth it. 

Teaching is one of the few professions that truly offers innumerable opportunities to experience joy and fulfilment -- both in the everyday work environment and internally. Teaching is regarded as the noblest of all professions and very rightly so, I dare say. It is considered as a calling with a special mission in life demanding commitment, integrity, and dedication. It is a calling that brings with it a big challenge to deal with young and delicate minds of different needs, moods, upbringings, exposures, environment and varied types of personalities. 

A teacher job is not solely to teach or to merely impart knowledge, rather they generally help learners form a lens through which to view the world and they position to provide you with the tools to change that same world. The teacher's job to guide students in their academic, social, and emotional development.

I do not intend to portray teaching through rose-coloured glasses, but it is absolutely tested and true that educators who love the work they do mostly have the honor of knowing that they touch lives each day of their lives. Invariably, both these kind of teachers and the students they teach will experience a very high level of job satisfaction.

When you become an educator, your life changes completely. Your priorities change. You are continually provided with opportunities to maintain a spirit of youthfulness, exuberance and a flexible attitude...

The teacher will realise that to effectively educate, you will be pushed to continually be on the look out for personal growth and development. You become a life long learner.

And, as you, the teacher continue to learn and grow higher, you will find yourself doing the following:

Making a Difference
Rewriting histories and changing destinies.
Doing a lot more than simply transmitting information.
Driving students to realise their dreams.
Lighting fires in their hearts and eyes.
Fostering excellence.
They witness learning, comprehension, and awareness.
They see and diffuse confusions.
They calm frustration.
And they, undoubtedly, kindle passion.
Educators make you want to learn more and they help you learn more. 

Educators are agents of change.

And it was Mark Van Doren who said, "The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery".
And, Anatole France also said that, the whole art of teaching is the only art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; and curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy.

What greater joy could there be?

Teaching And Relationships

I have always thought that teaching, learning and relationships are very deeply intertwined and after I watching the Ted Talk by Rita Pierson,  where she said the same thing, I felt more than validated.
I have also heard teachers who think that their job is only to teach. They insist that they are not paid to put up with certain behaviours from learners or in the words of some people, "to spoon feed or babysit students".
Over the last few years as I got more involved with adult learners, I have learned that my job includes and goes beyond teaching and classroom practices.
I have seen teachers take on different roles; psychologists, counsellor, listener, advisor, cheer leader, confidante. I have myself sometimes taken up the role of a parent, a sibling and more often than not, a friend.
And although, technically, these does not fall into our official job description, this is what being an educator entails.
As a teacher, you are all of that and more.
You are a facilitator.
You are a mentor.
You are a coach.
You are a role model.
You build and foster relationships and you teach them how to do the same.
Remember that it doesn't matter if you're teaching 5 year olds or middle aged executives. This is what we do.
And, the truth of the matter is that nobody will explain all this to you, not in full details anyways.  And nobody will pay you for it. Well, at least not materially.
But, be consoled, you will be told that the rewards and satisfaction of getting it right far outweighs any financial renumeration. And, maybe it does.

I would like to read your opinions.

Why We Still Have Bad Teachers.

In every profession, there is a very real possibility of losing your job if you're not good at it.
Doctors, lawyers and almost all other professionals could lose their license to practice, if they are involved in any form of malpractice or if there exists evidence of unethical behaviours..
CEOs are fired if they fail to deliver or to live up to expectations.However, in the education sector, firing a bad teacher is sometimes, all but impossible.

In the United States, Tenure is a practice that guarantees a teacher their job. Originally, this was a due process guarantee, something intended to work as a check against administrators capriciously firing teachers and replacing them with friends or family members. It was also designed to protect teachers who took political stands the community might disagree with". But, over the years, it has become a protective wall for poor performing teachers. Irrespective of how bad a teacher is, if he or she has Tenure, trying to fire him or her could result in a big court case that could cost the unimaginable in terms of time, money and other resources.

In most cases, building a case for dismissing a teacher could be so time-consuming, costly and draining for principals and administrators that many say they don't make the effort except in the most egregious cases. And, even when teachers are fired, the vast majority of firings stem from blatant misconduct, including sexual abuse, other immoral or illegal behavior, insubordination or repeated violation of rules such as showing up on time. There are hardly any known instances where a teacher was fired for the sole reason of being incompetent in the classroom.

A few years ago in the UK, the General Teaching Council’s chief executive Keith Bartley said there could be as many as 17,000 ‘substandard’ teachers among the 500,000 registered teachers in the UK. Yet, after making this affirmation, which a lot people agree is true, there was no attempt to fire any of them.

In some countries, Teachers' Union is the obstacle in firing a teacher who is, in the very least, mediocre in his or her job.

It should be pointed out that sometimes, the problem of incompetent teachers goes far deeper than a flawed regulatory structure or self-interested unions. It also involved the education sector's implacable desire to protect not just poorly performing employees but an entire way of thinking about education itself.

Looking back on my years as a student, I still remember my teachers. Both the really good ones and the really crappy ones. I bet you do too. We all tend to remember the extremes, and we all tend to be moulded by these extremes.
Our lives and career choices are usually mostly influenced by the people who directly impacted on us and inspired us in different ways.

My high school principal was an amazing woman who taught me resilience and determination and self preservation. And, when I decided to get involved in education, she was the example I remembered and the role model I wanted to impress. She still is.

My Physics teacher on the other hand, made me doubt myself on more than one occasion. She was crappy at her job and she made sure she blamed her students or the school for her ineptitude. Needless to say, I hated Physics and (even though, I was good at all the other science subjects), I chose not to pursue a career in Medicine like many people thought I would, and to this day, some people in my family still blame my Physics teacher for this.

I am proud of what I have achieved and where my life is headed, but there are times when I have wondered about all the bad teachers I have encountered and how their actions or lack of them might have affected my choices.

Working as an instructional coach, I have also come across lots of teachers, some of them great educators and some of them downright terrible at their jobs. And, I wonder why they are still teaching.
It is true that there are no fixed parameters to gauge how good or bad a teacher is. I know that there are many variables and teaching usually occurs in complex environments and most times teaching quality itself is affected by contextual factors.But, when a learner is stuck with an uninspired teacher who hates his or her job, everyone loses, especially the learner. A kid who in his most mouldable and impressionable years, encounters a really bad teacher is set on difficult course. It has been observed that about 6 percent of students of ineffective teachers actually see their abilities drop. Learners get so turned off by a particular teacher and begin hating a subject so much that they actually will score lower on tests than at the beginning of the year.

The effect of a bad teacher on a student would shock you. One expert testified in a court that a single year in a classroom with a bad teacher costs pupils $1.4 million in lifetime earnings per classroom, as could be seen in this study. And, it doesn't end there, research has found that if a student has an ineffective teacher, a learning deficit can almost always be measured four years later – even if they have had several highly effective teachers afterwards,” said June Rivers, an education researcher at the software firm SAS.

Bristol University professor Simon Burgess, who has researched the impact of bad teachers on pupil performance, says that if all the poor teachers were replaced by even just average ones achievement per pupil would rise by as much as half a grade.

Learners may not be exposed to physical threat from ineffective teachers, but their entire life chances are certainly imperilled by them.
And, in spite of all the evidences of the effects of incompetence of educators on the learner, there has been reluctance among legislators and lawmakers, school administrators and union officials to hold underperforming teachers accountable.
So, we are stuck with bad teachers.

Why do we still put up with and make excuses for them?
Why is it that instead of removing them from the profession, dud teachers are merely being recycled or being transferred to alternative schools which means that other unfortunate children will get a lousy education.
Why can't we just fire the bad teachers and give the opportunity to someone else who will do a better job.

I am an optimist and I strongly believe in the power of second chances, even third ones. I am also an ardent supporter of continuous professional and personal development, (I am a Coach after all), but when a teacher is bad at his job, it shows.

I think it is high time professional educators are left to design educational policy, measure its effectiveness, and make the necessary changes. Now, if the person fails to seek ways to do things better and does not take any definite measure to correct lapses in practice, I am of the opinion that they should go, they just might excel in another profession.


Please, join the debate. Tell us what you think and share your experiences...

What the future of education looks like.

In the face of emerging technologies, almost everywhere you look, you can find countless opportunities to access information and educational content that were available to only a select and privileged few before. Some of the solutions that facilitate the learning process, making it possible for students to experience learning at any time and place, even outside the classroom include and are not limited to; Mobile Learning, Cloud Based Learning, Online Learning, Open-Source Learning, etc. There are new measure and tools being used, like Collaborative Learning, Project Based Learning, Peer Learning and they all require different models of work.

Social platforms are also being used increasingly in learning as they facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience. This is often referred to as Social Learning. With smartphones, tablets, and computers all over the place and with most people having easy access to the internet, learners are defining their individual needs and taking charge of their learning as well as creating limitless possibilities for themselves.

Consequently, the roles of the teachers and educators are also changing. The teacher is now becoming more of a guide for their students and it is the student who has become a central figure both in the classroom and in the whole process of learning in what is referred to as Student-Centred Learning.

And, over the past decade, the debate among global education leaders about how to transform education to meet this new era is steadily being intensified. 
A report, "A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning" released by education visionary Michael Fullan, provides educators with solutions for how to change pedagogies to foster deep learning. The report reflects on the impact technology has had on the way we learn and suggest a new education model that prepares learners to succeed in today’s knowledge-based economy. In the reports, educators are urged to aim the metamorphosing system toward deeper learning outcomes — in other words, moving students past mastery of existing content to become both the creators and users of new knowledge.


Please share your thoughts.

How to help your kids with homework

For many parents, the problem about homework is not whether it's too much or too little but the type of work the kids are bringing home.
"I am not an advocate for homework for the sake of homework," said Francesca Price, a pregnant mom of two sons who aren't yet school-age. "This does nothing but waste time for the student who has yet to complete it, as well as for the teacher who has to grade it, giving both of them what everyone calls 'busy work.' "
Dr. Tish Howard, a newly retired elementary school principal who continues to work with ailing schools as CEO of Edu-Linx Consulting, has never been a proponent of what she calls "tedious homework."
"If a learner is struggling, homework is not the key to improvement," she said, noting how few Learners have support at home to help them if they're having trouble with their homework. "Our schools need to embed intervention time at the end of each day to support the learning of that day and ensure conceptual understanding before new learning is added the next day."

Rachel Dueker, now a college sophomore in Ottawa, Kansas, says she benefited from a high school seminar class at the end of the day where she could do her homework in school -- a tremendous stress reliever.
"I always did my math homework during my seminar class and went to my math teacher and sat side by side with her and got that help, and I didn't have to put in any extra time. It was given to me," Dueker said during an interview.

Music may harm your studying, study says Rhonda Lochiatto, a 16-year teaching veteran who currently teaches fourth grade in Volusia County, Florida, came up with a unique homework policy after she realized as a parent herself how little time there is for homework once you factor in after-school activities and life in general.
"I don't require homework. In my class, I see homework as my opportunity to provide guidance to parents and offer ways for them to help their children at home," said the mom of two, who gives her students a "suggestion calendar" with optional interactive activities such as read-aloud time and topics to discuss.

"If a child has mastered a skill, there is no reason to waste time drilling it over and over, especially when they are struggling in other areas," said Lochiatto.

One thing I have heard repeatedly from learners on both sides of the debate is the impact homework has -- or does not have -- on academic performance.

Allie Eleuther, a single mom of two in Hilton Head, South Carolina, said it has been proven there is little value in homework. "More is not always better and does not result in kids getting a better education and doing better on standardized tests."

Shay Hardin, a single mother of two, believes the movement away from homework is hurting our children's performance and the United States overall. "This is why many countries are already beginning to exceed the U.S. in terms of educational rank," she said.
Who's right?

A 2012 study found no relationship between the amount of time spent on homework and grades, but did find a positive link between homework and performance on standardized tests. A 2006 analysis of homework studies found a link between time spent on homework and achievement, but found it was much stronger in secondary school versus elementary school, versus Higher and further Education. That analysis also found that for junior high school students, homework reaches the point of diminishing return at around 90 minutes, and between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours for high schoolers.
We just need to figure out what the right dosage is before our Elephant becomes something with a little more bite.

Author: Nicholas Blunsum
*information and interviews sourced from CNN.

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Education: Nothing has changed.

What is Education? Answers from 5th Century BC to the 21^st Century

1. The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. -- Jean Piaget, 1896-1980, Swiss developmental psychologist, philosopher

2. An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.-- Anatole France, 1844-1924, French poet, novelist

3. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.  -- Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013, South African President, philanthropist

4. The object of education is to teach us to love beauty. -- Plato, 424 – 348 BC, philosopher mathematician

5. The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education -- Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968, pastor, activist, humanitarian

6. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, physicist

7. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle, 384-322 BC, Greek philosopher, scientist

8. Education is the power to think clearly, the power to act well in the world’s work, and the power to appreciate life. -- Brigham Young, 1801-1877, religious leader

9. Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer – into a selflessness which links us with all humanity. -- Nancy Astor, 1879-1964, American-born English politician and socialite

10. Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. -- William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939, Irish poet

11. Education is freedom. – Paulo Freire, 1921-1997, Brazilian educator, philosopher

12. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. -- John Dewey, 1859-1952, philosopher, psychologist, education reformer 

13. Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.-- George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, scientist, botanist, educator 

14. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. – Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer, poet

15. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. -- Sydney J. Harris, 1917-1986, journalist

16. Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. -- Malcolm Forbes, 1919-1990, publisher, politician

17. No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness andgenerosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. – Emma Goldman, 1869 – 1940, political activist, writer

18. Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. -- John W. Gardner, 1912-2002, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson

19. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.-- Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer, theologian, poet, philosopher

20. Education is the movement from darkness to light. -- Allan Bloom, 1930-1992, philosopher, classicist, and academician

21. Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. -- Daniel J. Boorstin, 1914-2004, historian, professor, attorney

22. The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values. -- William S. Burroughs, 1914-1997, novelist, essayist, painter

23. The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. -- Robert M. Hutchins, 1899-1977, educational philosopher

24. Education is all a matter of building bridges. -- Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994, novelist, literary critic, scholar

25. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul. -- Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, English essayist, poet, playwright, politician

26. Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. -- Malcolm X, 1925-1965, minister and human rights activist

27. Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.  -- Solomon Ortiz, 1937-, former U.S. Representative-TX

28. The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. -- Plutarch, 46-120AD, Greek historian, biographer, essayist

29. Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations.  Bob Beauprez, 1948-, former member of U.S. House of Representatives-CO

30. The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child’s home. – William Temple, 1881-1944, English bishop, teacher

31. Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. -- John Ruskin, 1819-1900, English writer, art critic, philanthropist

32. Education levels the playing field, allowing everyone to compete. -- Joyce Meyer, 1943-, Christian author and speaker

33. Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. – B.F. Skinner, 1904-1990, psychologist, behaviorist, social philosopher

34. The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers rather than to fill it with the accumulation of others. – Tyron Edwards, 1809-1894, theologian

35. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength of the nation. -- John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, 35^th President of the United States

36. Education is like a lantern which lights your way in a dark alley. – Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 1918-2004, President of the United Arab Emirates for 33 years 

37. When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts. -- Dalai Lama, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism

38. Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.  -- Robert Frost, 1874-1963, poet

39. The secret in education lies in respecting the student. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, essayist, lecturer, and poet

40. My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance, butunderstanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. -- Maya Angelou, 1928-, author, poet

Being realistic.

No matter how prepared you are, there’s one thing that I can absolutely guarantee: if you’re on the river of life, it’s likely you’re going to hit a few rocks. 
That’s not being negative; that’s being practical, realistic and accurate. 
The key is that when you do run aground, instead of beating yourself up for being such a “failure,” remember that there are no failures in life. There are only results. 
If you didn’t get the results you wanted, learn from this experience so that you have references about how to make better decisions in the future.

Reasons for being an Educator.

Personally, I stumbled into teaching. Then, I got hooked. I got completely addicted to the joys, the thrills, the challenges and the fulfilment that teaching and being an educator entails.

My reasons are simple: I love to share. I love to help. I love to learn. I love being in a position to inspire and influence others positively. I love being able to make an impact.

Being a educator has provided me with the platform to do all of these and I can honestly say that, in spite of the challenges and the pressures involved, I absolutely do not want to be or do anything else.

Generally, most educators have some pretty selfless and inspiring reasons for going into education.

Recently, Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation released a survey where more than 20,000 teachers were asked various questions about how they feel about the job, including why they were motivated to become teachers. Their answers show that indeed, teaching and educating is a noble profession, filling us with optimism about education.

According to the survey, an overwhelming majority of teachers said their top reasons for going into education were "to make a difference in children's lives," "to share my love of learning and teaching" and "to help students reach their full potential." Barely any said they went into teaching "for the earning potential" or for "no particular reason."


Here's a full breakdown of how teachers responded to the survey questions:



We only wish everyone had such positive reasons for choosing a profession.

If you're an educator, share with us your reasons for going into the field of education. 

And, if not, share with us why you chose your present profession.

3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections with Your Students | Edutopia

Educators' Lounge.

Being a teacher/educator is as exciting and fulfilling as anyone with a good head on their shoulders can imagine. Sometimes, if not always, you find out that to effectively share knowledge, to help others in their quest for learning and development, educators need to connect with their students.

3 Ways to Make Meaningful Connections with Your Students | Edutopia

Share with us the ways you best connect with your students.

Positivity and Leadership: 3 steps to getting it right.

1.    Listening and empathy.

Showing empathy to people helps them develop a stable base, so they can feel comfortable to explore and take risks. This can lead to more creativity, more effectiveness and better problem-solving skills.

Research shows that the part of our brains that focuses on goals actually inhibits the part that helps us to understand and empathize with others.

2.    A caring boss is more important than what you earn.

In a survey of employees at seven hundred companies, the majority said that a caring boss was more important to them than how much they earned. 
Making your employees feel heard and understood can actually improve their physical health as well as their mental well-being. 
"Workers who feel unfairly criticized, or whose boss will not listen to their problems, have a rate of coronary heart disease 30 percent higher than those who feel treated fairly."

Simply listening to people helps them to offload their negative feelings and release tension. Carrying around anxiety or frustration can hinder an employee’s performance, so try to tap into how they’re feeling on a regular basis.

3.    Make interpersonal chemistry a priority.

"Our sense of engagement and satisfaction at work results in large part from the hundreds and hundreds of daily interactions we have while there, whether with a supervisor, colleagues, or customers."

 Making a priority of how well your people get along is something that can not be overemphasized, Especially in bigger teams, where you may not interact with each employee as often, ensuring that there is positive chemistry among team members could make a big difference to the overall company culture.

"The accumulation and frequency of positive versus negative moments largely determines our satisfaction and ability to perform; small exchanges—a compliment on work well done, a word of support after a setback—add up to how we feel on the job." And most times, how we feel on the job, goes a long way in how we do the job.

Wikipedia according to Turnitin

Wikipedia in the classroom

Following the link above, you can find an interesting approach to how Wikipedia is addressed nowadays in the classroom and the potential benefits it may have.

This brief article has been published by Turnitin, mainly a powerful tool to detect students' plagiarism, but also a rich source of innovative teaching ideas.

The ones who understand failures.

Big dreams and big goals can only be realized as long as you are ready to fail – again and again.  And, you see, the most successful people are those who fail the most. With each failure you grow, you become bigger, you learn new things and you get one step closer to reaching your goals.

One thing is absolutely sure, if you REALLY want to succeed in life, if you want to do something special, if you want to fulfil your dreams… failure becomes inevitable.

But, failing is not so much the problem as the attitude you have towards it. With the right attitude, failure could be surmounted and even be welcome. People who have succeeded in anything know that…

•  Failure is an integral part on the way to success and self realization. Don't sulk, pout or whine about it. Expect it, accept it, and welcome it.
• Every time you fail,  you become stronger, and wiser. You are better able to identify what didn’t work.
• Failure is a great teacher and it allows you to learn some of the most valuable life lessons.
• Each failure brings you one step closer to reaching your goals.
• Whenever you step outside the comfort zone and whenever you try something new, failure becomes inevitable.
• Failure teaches you that a certain approach may not be ideal for a specific situation and that there are better approaches.
• Making mistakes is not a big deal as long as you learn from them and avoid repeating them.
• Successful people will never laugh at you or judge you when you fail, because they have already been there and they know about the valuable lessons you can learn from failure
• Each time you fail, your fear of failure becomes smaller, which allows you to take on even bigger challenges.
•  No matter how often you fail, you are not a failure as long as you don’t give up.

If you are still stuck in your old paradigm of “failing is bad and should be avoided by all means”,  if you're still being held back by your fear of failure, then you ought to read some autobiographies of highly successful people to learn how they “failed” their way to success. You might be surprised at how often they failed until they finally excelled, the lessons their failures taught them and subsequently the different and rather positive attitude they have adopted towards failure.

How do you deal with failures? Do you have a specific approaches to quickly get over your failures and to continue on the road to succeed. 

These examples should help us understand the benefits of failing as well as the power of our determination to succeed, and encourage us to go on trying until we conquer our fears and thrive in our pursuits.

Homework; The Elephant in the room

Educators' Lounge


Ask anyone on the street, no matter their age, about homework and you are bound to get an instant reaction. Vietnam acid-like flashbacks of a time gone by, or simply from the other day a school run through the mind. The drill sergeant of the classroom demanding more; more time, more effort and more commitment.

This unforgiving Mamal in the room has to be viewed from all perspectives, from Educators to Learners, Parental Guardians to Human Resources Dept and from Companies to Education Institutions. However this particular White Elephant can be boiled down to simply,
"Should we be setting and/or doing Homework?"

As Learners go back to school and we begin to negotiate balancing family time and take-home assignments, we relate and share that, Learners are stressed out and exhausted by the volume of homework they receive (so, too, are parents who say they've had to become drill sergeants in their own home to get it all done). Other parents say their kids aren't getting enough or any homework at all and they've had to create their own to keep their kids challenged. Some parents complained that their kids' homework is more busy work than helpful work to improve academic performance, while others said their kids' homework is just right -- and critical to competing in a global economy.
The concept of homework is so ingrained in our culture that people can't and won't think about what it might be like if we just stopped making our kids do homework, refuse to enforce more than 10 minutes of homework per grade level for each grade of learner, which is the guideline recommended by both the National PTA and the National Education Association, can significantly impact a Learner.

Homework: How much, how often?

On the other side of the debate is Ann Gunty, a mom of four in Flagstaff, Arizona, who doesn't understand -- or support -- the notion that children should have less homework or no homework at all.
"I just don't think it's the right thing to say, 'Oh, they don't need any homework. It's just too much. They should be out playing and adults relaxing after a hard days of work. They should only go to school,' " Gunty states. "Making it less and less and less is contributing to us being less competitive worldwide." Gunty's kids, who attend a school that runs from grade 5 through 12, get between one to two hours of homework, including 30 math problems every night, which she feels is appropriate, beneficial (her kids' school enjoys high test scores and strong college placement) and not intrusive on their ability to still be kids or enjoy family time.

Mozart Saint Cyr, a father or two in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, takes it bit further: He doesn't think kids today get enough homework and are so distracted by video games and social media that they're going downhill. He says parents should demand more from their kids: "If the school provided extra homework, some parents would force their kids to do (it)."

Author: Nicholas Blunsum

Please tell us your opinion and where you stand on this debate, find us on our website at www.jogglelounge.com, visit us on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/jogglelounge, you can also follow us on Twitter @jogglelounge for up-to-date Coaching Tips and Tricks.
*information and interviews sourced from CNN.

The Leader, the Educator and the Art of Listening

Think about it: What’s the most common gripe among unhappily married couples? “You’re not listening to me!” 

Why do talented managers jump from one corporation to another? When they feel that senior management has all but turned a deaf ear to their needs and concerns.

What one thing do students swear to being tired of hearing in and outside the classroom? "Listen to your teacher!" 

The fact is, getting people to listen–really listen–is damn hard. Listening is even harder. And given how busy leaders and educators can be, it’s easy to see why they, most of all might fall prey to “selective” listening. Unexpected thoughts or approaches vying for purchase in an already crowded cranium can come off like a bunch of hot air. 

Being a really really good listener requires that for the time it takes to listen well, you have to place your own ego behind you. Not deny it. Not suppress it. But set it aside; bracket it, so to speak, so that your intention can actually bring the unique person of the other into full view.

To really master the art of being a good listener, you must, first and foremost, understand that the other person is not you. This may sound simplistic, but it’s important to understand that the other person does not operate from the same assumptions as you do: the most important assumptions being those that are unconscious. Even if you both share the same social and economic status, the same ethnic and religious background, the same education and experience, that’s not enough to guarantee that you know or can predict what the other person is going to say nor how he is going to say it. You must understand that there will always be points of divergence, and when you’re not expecting and subsequently not prepared for these points of divergence differences, the person you are talking to can branch off in unexpected and startling ways that can lead to confusion and frustration, if not irritation and even rage.

So, the first of the essentials of really good listening: be sure to act from the premise that the other person is not you. 

And this leads to the second essential of a really good listener---curiosity. You must sincerely want to know who the other person is. What makes them tick? What assumptions govern their lives, unconscious or otherwise?  What are they going to tell me? In many instances, deep listening is not worth the time and focus it takes. But when it is, it returns a treasure of understanding that enhances and bolster the strength of your relationship. And, what’s more, you keep learning!

Thirdly: keep in mind that the other person’s point of view is as important to them as yours is to you. This perspective will prevent you from dismissing them out of hand when they express something not in alignment with what you think or believe and sometimes they may even contradict your position. If you do not grant them the right to be different from you and legitimately so, the onus falls on you for projecting your narcissism onto the other. The option is to allow your curiosity to give them the benefit of the doubt. This doesn’t mean you have to agree or even want to remain connected. But you won’t fall into the trap of characterizing them from your own point of view which means that you’re characterizing them as in some way wrong if they are not you. And you won’t be the only one in that moment that counts.

The fourth essential: listen for their non-conscious presuppositions/assumptions because they form the context or the non-conscious frame for their point of view. This may seem daunting but it’s not. People express things consciously, but at the same time we all say things from the unconscious dimension of our minds. That’s inevitable. It is in this  unconscious dimension that our presuppositions reside, and they are mostly expressed as slips of the tongue, inconsistencies, even contradictions.

To listen really well, you must be aware of and stay alert to both dimensions of the mind---conscious and unconscious. Short of that, you are certain to be listening only partially and with equal certainty, you will miss what’s right there in front of you.

To summarise: begin with the fact that the other person is not you. Follow that with your sincere curiosity. Bracket your ego and remember that the other person’s point of view is as important to them as yours is to you. And listen for their non-conscious presuppositions/assumptions. The degree to which you can integrate and practice these listening strategies will not only make you a great listener but will open up other people to you in ways you will never have imagined.

How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?

By Carolyn Gregoire

What makes some people more successful in work and life than others? IQ and work ethic are important, but they don’t tell the whole story. Our emotional intelligence — the way we manage emotions, both our own and those of others — can play a critical role in determining our happiness and success.

Plato said that all learning has some emotional basis, and he may be right. The way we interact with and regulate our emotions has repercussions in nearly every aspect of our lives. To put it in colloquial terms, emotional intelligence (EQ) is like “street smarts,” as opposed to “book smarts,” and it’s what accounts for a great deal of one’s ability to navigate life effectively.

“What having emotional intelligence looks like is that you’re confident, good at working towards your goals, adaptable and flexible. You recover quickly from stress and you’re resilient,” Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, tells The Huffington Post. “Life goes much more smoothly if you have good emotional intelligence.”

Read the full article at the Huffington Post

Summer Travel for Teachers

As an educator; a teacher, trainer, facilitator or coach, you find yourself giving and sharing all the time. You may not know it, but every summer, different organizations provide a lot of  wonderful opportunities for teachers and educators to travel to different parts of the world. Teachers could choose volunteer programmes, where accommodation and food is provided. These summer travel opportunites comes in different packages, but it is such an enriching experience that it is highly recommended as one of the "50 Things every Educator must do before you retire"

Below are a few suggestions that might help you plan your next summer trip.

No-Cost Summer Travel for Teachers | Edutopia

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/summer-trips-teachers

http://www.edinformatics.com/travel/teacher_travel.htm

Emotional Intelligence: Rules from my Mum

For over a decade now, the issue of teaching Emotional Intelligence has become hot trending topic.

Everybody is talking about it, there are the skeptics and then there are the ones who'll swallow everything trending without so much as a question.

I'm neither one nor the other. I just think that emotionally  intelligent people have been around forever and it seems a little bit interesting that some of us are only just waking up to that fact. 
But as my people would say, " your morning is when you wake up" and usually whenever they do, we say good morning to them all the same.

These day, a lot of people are paying huge amount of money to coaches and experts to help them become emotionally intelligent.

I admire those who are advocating for its inclusion in school and by all means, I think we should.

However, I admire even more my Mum who taught me a lot of what is now being defined as "emotional intelligence".

Back in the days, it had other names...

Back in the days, it was not a school subject but you learnt it anyway.

There were no refresher courses or coaching session, but you never forget.

The rules were simple:

“Treat others the same way you want to be treated”.

“Understand them, and even when you can’t,  you don’t judge”.

“Be kind to people, everyone you meet is fighting some battle”.

“A kind word turns away wrath, but retorts blurted out in haste and without considerations will weaken and even poison a saint”.

“Always extend a helping hand, you never know when you might need it back”.

“Take people up, it could be quite lonely at the top and you will need all the help you can get, and some nice company won´t hurt you”.

“Everyone is your teacher; superiors, peers and subordinate alike. Learn, learn and never stop learning”.

“A cheerful disposition makes a lot of things a whole lot easier. Keep a smile about”.

There were other rules where those came from, but then I´m trying to keep this post short.

In leadership, management and all other interpersonal relationships, the need for emotionally intelligent people can not be overempazised and over the years, after Daniel Goleman´s bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence a lot is still being written about it. People are still learning and gradually we are all becoming more aware of the benefits of being emotionally intelligent and encouraging the same in others.

Re-modelling your Community in the Clouds

Educators’ Lounge

Following on from the previous post, I wanted to share with you some interesting ways to shape the way you can build your Cloud Storage Community. Enjoy and don't be afraid of experimenting in the classroom.

• Sharing Stored Files

In the early days, some educators probably turned to cloud storage simply because their school's own networking setup lacked such a feature. Anecdotal reports suggest that schools now are sanctioning the use of cloud services like Dropbox. 
In 2012, Dropbox launched a program called Space Race, offering people with an .edu email address an extra 3 GB of storage -- on top of the 2 GB of storage all users get. At this writing, it is not clear if Dropbox will offer Space Race again this year.
Sharing a single file with students can be as easy as emailing over a unique link created for each file or by networking the cloud storage and allowing students easy access.

• Overcoming Email and cross device limitations.

Over-size attachments, such as large PowerPoint files and videos, that never reach their intended recipient because the email program chokes on the file, is a common complaint of email users. Cloud Storage essentially solves this problem by bypassing email. Another useful function is having your Cloud across devices with differing Operating Systems. Linking Android – Apple – PC devices is as easy as dropping a file into you Cloud Storage and syncing everything together. Problem solved

• Setting and Turning in Homework

In its simplest application, Dropbox can be as used a common filing cabinet through which teachers can provide documents, such as homework assignments and handouts, and media files for the entire class. But another popular use goes in the opposite direction, from students to teachers. Using Dropbox as a homework drop has the added benefit of providing, by default, a time-stamp for these submissions. 
Of course, students can share Dropbox folders with each other too, and so collaborate on joint assignments. Happily, the free version of Dropbox saves a history of all deleted and earlier versions of files for 30 days. Paid Dropbox Pro accounts have a feature called Packrat that saves file history indefinitely. 

• Easy back-up and syncing with apps

Quite a number of popular productivity and educational applications now feature a Cloud "sync" option. Evernote, for example, has a "save to Dropbox" option. Other popular education apps with Dropbox integration include: Notability, iThoughtsHD and Ghostwriter Notes. 
A free Cloud storage account can include 2 GB of space. Users can earn more free space in a variety of ways. Also, more storage can be purchased via monthly or annual plans. For institutions needing even more storage, there is Dropbox for Teams, which adds a number of advanced account security and management options, as well as unlimited storage.

• Building communities in the classroom

One of the most important features of Cloud Storage is giving a classroom a sense of ‘Community’, where interaction can be encouraged. Be it downloading, uploading or Facilitating Group Projects.
Some courses require that students work collaboratively on a project. Cloud Storage can help facilitate this process by providing a space in which students can work together. Group folders can be created and accessed in the Public folder (via a web-link to the folder) or a private folder in which each student in that group has personal Access.

• Evaluate Student Portfolios

If you are teaching a course where students submit multiple assignments or portfolios for evaluation, you can create and share a folder for each individual student, and have them submit their work to the folder. Students can have a private portfolio that only you can see if they sign up for Dropbox themselves and create their own folder and share it with you.

[example: See ENGL 211 for a course that uses Dropbox for evaluating student writing portfolios: http://writingaboutlit.community.uaf.edu/how-to-submit-work/]

Author: Nicholas Blunsum

Positivity and Leadership

JoggleLounge

As a leader, the need to focus on positive interactions and encouraging an upbeat emotional state at the workplace as often as possible, will likely help you build a happy, productive and efficient team.

To start with, let’s look at how positive and negative
emotions work in our brains, and what we can learn from that.

Positive emotions generally work in an opposite way to negative emotions. So, while emotions like fear, anxiety, stress and anger narrow our focus, inhibit our concentration and decrease our cognitive abilities, positive emotions can do the opposite. When we’re feeling upbeat and happy, we’re more likely to have an inclusive focus than a self-centered outlook, and to perform better on cognitively demanding tasks.

When faced with negative events, our brains struggle to perform at their regular—and sometimes, highest—capacity. The prefrontal cortex, which is the brain’s “executive center” is pushed aside so the amygdala can take over and prepare the body for any crisis that might possibly arise.
This shift in control to the low road favors automatic habits, as the amygdala draws on knee-jerk responses to save us. 

When we’re stressed or scared, for instance, we struggle to think clearly, to coordinate well with others, to take in new information and to come up with new ideas. Even existing routines suffer, as our concentration is taken over by our negative emotions.
The more intense the pressure, the more our performance and thinking will suffer. 

In his book Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, Daniel Goleman explains that heightened prefrontal activity, which is associated with positive emotions, enhances mental abilities such as “creative thinking, cognitive flexibility, and the processing of information.” The left prefrontal area of our brains, which lights up with activity when we’re in a positive mood, is also associated with reminding us of the good feelings we’ll have when we reach a long-term goal.

Goleman’s book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence also discusses positivity and how it affects us. Goleman explains how positivity is measured at a neural level, which involves looking at the length of time we can maintain a positive outlook after something good happens. In a study of participants with depression, control subjects with no mental illness were able to hold onto positive feelings for much longer than those with symptoms of depression.

Positive encouragement and communication.

The way leaders use positivity when communicating with employees can make a huge impact on their emotional well-being and their performance. Goleman looked at several ways this can happen in Social Intelligence.

In one experiment, the emotional tone of a leader delivering news to an employee made more impact that the news itself. When negative feedback was delivered with a warm tone, the employees usually rated the interaction positively. On the other hand, good news, such as achieving a goal, delivered with a negative tone would leave employees feeling bad.

The emotional state of a leader can rub off on employees even when they’re not sharing feedback specifically. Just being more upbeat can improve the emotional state of your employees, as well as helping them to be more efficient and coordinate better.

Employees are also more likely to remember negative interactions than positive ones, and to spread the negativity among other employees.

When sharing feedback with employees, negatively-focused discussions are more likely to increase feelings of guilt, fear and anxiety. As I mentioned earlier, these emotions work against our cognitive abilities, forcing us into a spiral of being stressed about the need to improve, while our brains are too busy being stressed for us to actually improve.

In Focus, Goleman looked at how talking about positive goals and dreams can be a better way to encourage employess. Richard Boyatzis, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University explained that focusing on what someone needs to do to “fix” themselves will effectively close them down to new possibilities or ideas.

Boyatzis did an experiment on college students, scanning their brains during interviews about college life. For one group, the interviews focused on positive outlooks—where they hoped to be in ten years, and what they wanted to gain from college. The other group had a negatively-focused interview where they talked about the stresses and fears of college life, struggles in their performance and workload and troubles in making new friends.

As you might expect, the areas of the brain related to negative emotions like anxiety and sadness were more often activated during the negative interviews. During the positive interviews, more activity was seen in the brain’s reward circuitry and areas related to happy memories and positive emotions.
A conversation that starts with a person’s dreams and hopes can lead to a learning path yielding that vision. 

No doubt, we can’t avoid all negative moments, but adding enough positive ones to offset those that trouble us can make us happier and more productive.