Independence

Over the last decade women and girls have found empowerment through looking to other strong females who have resisted traditional gender roles and paths to success. For many, this has resulted in an increase in confidence and it has shattered misconceptions that there are things in life that cannot be achieved based on gender. While many women around our country enjoy the progressive environment in which they can achieve success and advancement in their careers without repression or harassment, many others do not live in that reality.

 

All over the world we see women’s independence being suppressed under the law of politics, religion or culture. This is obviously terrible, but in some parts of this country we have problems on the opposite end of the spectrum. Some of the more liberal parts of our country have leaned so whole heartedly into female independence that they have created unrealistic expectations that can be just as harmful to young girls.

 

I consider myself a feminist and I love female empowerment, but some parts of our country have created a “girl boss” culture that is unrealistic. There is an immense amount of pressure to be successful in your career while raising a family. This in and of itself is not that demanding. The problem is that social media has told us that we have to do all this while maintaining a perfect physique, flawless skin, a neat and organized home, a picture-ready family, and an active social life. This is asking too much of people. If you are someone who believes that she can do this, I support your dreams and goals, but I hate the idea of girls growing up under these expectations.

 

There is a way to be an independent woman without being a perfect woman. Girls, please understand that Gigi Hadid and the Jenner Sisters, and most girls that look perfect online, either aren’t showing you the bad parts of their lives, or they have a team that helps them look like they do. Dream big; don’t be bound by others’ limits for you, but also remember that you define your own success. The most important thing is that you are doing what makes you happy. Striving for personal growth and happiness is what makes a strong, independent woman. You don’t have to be a girl boss to be happy.

-          Bria

 

Obviously, our nation is celebrating its independence this weekend…thus, the title of our post.  Our nation’s struggle for independence is valuable as a metaphor for the struggle a child goes through for his/her independence.  Okay, there’s not a war – but sometimes we parents and teachers feel like we’ve been through one!

       Your child’s first struggles for freedom come with turning the head and turning over when you lay him down as an infant.  I want to look around!  By toddler, the struggle is one of pushing boundaries, and this continues until third grade, when, in a very Martin Lutheresque fashion, your child stands up to you regarding what she wears and how her hair is cut. This gentle rebellion against all you want to do regarding his personal life continues through 6th grade… and then the freedoms range beyond the shores of home.  Once your teen sees what’s out there, Mom, it will never be the same!  Middle school is full of comparison.  Your teen is looking for what others have and he has not, and she is beginning to think her life would be so much better if you would just (fill in the blank)

      By high school, she is fully armed with her beliefs and ready to make a stand on her own.  He begins seeking schooling far from home, and your struggle of trying to be supportive but remembering that this is your baby heightens. 

      It is not until about his sophomore year, though, that he truly revolts and establishes his independence.  She realizes she doesn’t really have to inform you of any of her decisions… just keep her grades up so she doesn’t get kicked out of the school.  You call, and everything’s fine, but the only hint of the rebellion against all you’ve carefully poured into their little heads is the occasional un-huh on the other end of the line when your advice is offered. 

      Upon graduation, the relationship changes.  You are now The British, not really the enemy, but definitely not the monarch you once were!  Don’t despair, though.  You’ll hear and see your words of wisdom, literally, when they come out of your now grown child’s mouth with his/her offspring! 

     Happy Fourth, everyone!  A heartfelt thanks to all who have sacrificed to give us our freedom!

-          Michelle

Independence…something everyone wants for himself, but seldom is quick to grant to others!  It is our annual celebration of the 4th of July, which keeps this word active in our vocabularies.  The very thought of independence for our children or our spouse is usually not allowed among our active thinking patterns.  Oh yes, the time does come when we’ve changed over a thousand diapers that we start wishing for our child to have independence…at least in bathroom activities!

            Our school policy is that children must be potty-trained before they can enter our three-year-old preschool program.  I never dreamed that so many children today are not independent of diapers by that time.  I’ve listened to many reasons given for this fact: “the new absorbent consumable diapers are keeping children so dry, they are not uncomfortable wearing them,” being the most often reported.  Of course, being of the ripe old age of 73, I am just appalled at this!  

            I did have one mother tell me that her daycare worker told her that children “just all of a sudden become potty-trained around three-and-a half-years.  It just happens.”   I have a great deal of difficulty with this notion since I remember many times of scrambling to the bathroom with my children to catch the “right moment” for them to use the potty.  I also remember training our dogs to use the great outdoors for their personal needs rather than our house.  Both of these situations demanded time and effort on our parts.  I personally think today’s double vocation families are part of the problem.  Day care facilities have their work cut out for them attending to many children at one time.  I at least had a trusted child care provider who assisted me while I worked.

            But alas, this is just one small problem I’ve noticed.  I am amazed at the number of children who are still being breast-fed after they have cut teeth!  Ouch!  I have met one family whose child was still being breast-fed at three years of age.  I’m sorry, but that is more than I can handle in the realm of possibilities.  And, being as opinionated as I am, I certainly do not take well to the new idea of some that mothers should first chew the food themselves and then give it to their children to eat…like the birds do for their young!  Until God gives us wings and feathers, I think I will reserve that “natural way of doing things” for our feathered friends of the forest!

            Where I really am concerned with independence is in the area of helicopter-parenting.  I have addressed this issue before in one of our blogs.  Being too protective of children can stunt their growth as much as anything described above.  Children who are afraid of their own shadows on the playground are at a definite disadvantage.  Instead of exploring and asking that great question, “Why?” they are searching frantically to see if Mommy is still there watching over them carefully.  They miss out so much of discovering the amazing world around them…Yes, even the school playground has much to offer the inquiring mind of most three-year-olds. 

            An area for independence that often is ignored is the doing of homework and chores.  I have also addressed these areas in past blogs.  However, let it be noted here that these two areas must be battlegrounds where the child wins only when he/she can be fully independent!  This battle usually results with wounds to the mother…which occurs when she realizes she must finally cut the apron strings which hold her child tightly to her.  Only then will both parent and child find true independence.

            Kay

Age

I just left the hospital room of the newest member of our LAAS family.  Our kindergarten teacher gave birth three weeks early, and mom and baby are doing fine!  How appropriate it is that I came from someone in his first twenty-four hours of life straight to writing a blog on “age.”

    This August I pass the half-a-century mark.  That’s not even feasible to me!  I still feel like a young married, and JT and I will have been married thirty years this year!  They say you are only as old as you feel, so I guess I’m doing fine if I still feel young.

    Age is one of those terms that we consider “relative.”  Like, That’s old – for a dog. or Very few six-year-olds can do the math she can.  All over the nation, students of the same “age” attend the same class(es), whether they are mentally the same age or not.  One of our former students missed the cut-off date for kindergarten at his new school by 96 hours.  This kid is extremely bright, but an age limit is an age limit. This kid has been reading since three, is learning Russian, and can tell you every moon and satellite of every planet in our solar system.  But, by all means, keep him in the pre-school class; I’m sure there’s something in there he missed in all his studies!

   The truth of the matter is that age does not mandate behavior or cognitive ability.  If we get a student who is very sharp, we place him where he will be challenged.  Because of this policy, we have a sophomore who is only 12.  He’ll be 13 in November.  When he took the ACT at age 11, he scored a composite of 32 and a 35 (nearly perfect) on the math section.  This kid needs a challenge.  Before advancing him, though, I did make sure the mother understood the consequences of promoting him early (i.e., wouldn’t be able to drive when classmates do; might need a permission slip to go off campus in college, etc.).   

   Conversely, there are students out there who take longer to grasp ideas at first.  Since we teach all at Lawton Academy as if they are gifted, often these students catch up and sometimes surpass their classmates by late middle school. 

   Don’t get me wrong:  there are some things that seem to occur at the same time in each child.  For instance, eight-year-olds seem prone to promote their own independence more than second graders.  Sixth graders, maybe in flux from a rush of hormones, tend to be discombobulated for almost the entire year!  Kids cannot articulate the “th” sound till around seven.  Sixteen-year-olds have the ability to operate a car (according to the State), and eighteen-year-olds are ready to help pick our politicians.

   Or at least they should be.  That’s my point.  Some kids aren’t ready at these bench marks.  Others run ahead and are ready to move to greater marks.  As a parent of a gifted child, be impressed with the abilities of your child, but be careful not to associate actions completed early as signs that your child should automatically move to the next grade.  What’s the rush?  He has all of his life to be “grown.”  Let him spend as much time as possible in the present… enjoying what kids his age do with kids his age.

      There’s a movie with a really interesting concept at its core.  Every person stops aging at 25, and each has a clock on his/her wrist that tells how much time he/she has till death.  It’s set for one year, but time is currency.  The wearer can barter with the time left, sometimes gaining thousands of extra hours.  How very different we might live our lives if age was a countdown rather than counting up.

    So today, I encourage you not to act your “age;” instead, act your intelligence level… or act your physical ability.  Don’t let what is supposed to happen at your age be the guide for your life.  Do the same for your children.  Gifted kids tend to recognize their own mortality. If your child is deathly afraid of water, but you are just sure that he should be swimming like all the other pollywogs at the YMCA, step back.  Look at what’s really going on here.  There’s a reason your friend’s child is standing on tippy-toe to make the height requirement for the largest rollercoaster, and yours is begging to go to the restroom instead, and it has all to do with the fact that he understands he could die.  Don’t push him.  He’ll get there… at the right time… whether that be at age eight or age thirty-eight. 

-          Michelle

Age… now that’s a very broad subject to cover! Since I’m not at all sensitive about my advancing age, I will address a few situations that I have observed this past week or so which speak directly to this topic.

            We were fortunate to have the Army band brass group, Scrap Metal, play a concert at our school yesterday for our summer music camp students.  It was a most enjoyable concert which included music from many genre and various time periods.  How shocking it was to these young soldiers to find at the completion of one of the numbers they chose especially for our young audience that most all of the students hadn’t heard of Sesame Street!  Talk about aging a musician fast!

            As I’ve noted in previous blogs, I find more and more often that there is a great experience gap between my students and me.  I was especially aware of this during the week as I fumbled from one internet video inquiry to the next in my music presentations for class studies.  As I often mistook a video format for an application, I heard an exasperated eleven year old say, “For goodness sake, just stop trying to interact with a video format! It’s You Tube!”

            I have to be honest and admit that the remark set the hair on the back of my neck on edge, and I retaliated with, “I may not have the fast thumbs you have from playing on your cell phones all day long, every day, but I’ll bet I can outpace you in a dozen or so real physical sports, games, etc.”  So, I guess I may be sensitive about my age after all!

            Now, back to the subject of age observations I made this week.  The before mentioned concert brought out an older neighbor who lives on the border of our school campus.  He came over to the fence near our pavilion in which the concert was taking place and complained to my husband that it was too loud and it disturbed him.  Now in the past, we have performed five concerts a year, each lasting about an hour in length.  Each time he has called and threatened to have the police come and stop our programs.

            I have tried being nice, tried giving him notice of when a concert will take place so he can be gone if that will help…all to no avail.  All I have been able to think of is the fact that of the 365+ days of the year, only five days are what he considers too loud for him to endure.  Our whole purpose was to get students interested in musical instruments and the joy of playing music.  Isn’t that a worthwhile effort since so many kids these days are into drugs, sex, gangs, and various crimes?  No wonder they named the syndrome, “Grumpy old men!”

            The last observation occurred when a parent explained that her sixth grader couldn’t ride a bicycle yet.  Her reason was that as older parents, they weren’t able to show the child how to do it by example.  That caused me to wonder how many other skills we find lacking in children may be due to couples waiting longer to have children.  So, I mention it here as a yellow cautionary flag to new parents: check out physical skills children are usually expected to have before entering school.  If age makes it hard to teach children these skills, find a young person who might like to help you out!  The child will certainly benefit from the effort.

            I just remembered another experience worth sharing.  One of our preschoolers has really been bothered by his father growing a beard.  I tried kidding the child by asking when he was going to start his beard like his dad’s.  He said, “It will take a bazillion years to grow and then you will die!”  Isn’t it funny how differently children and adults view time?!  

-          Kay

Age is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I have been 22 for just over a month now. In the grand scheme of things, I am fairly young. However, we have recently taken on a team of interns at work, and for the first time I am finding myself unable to relate with those younger than me. A few of our interns are under 18, and I cannot believe how differently we think. This has been incredibly eye opening because it has been the first time that I have found myself on the adult side of the equation.

At the same time, I am also the youngest person on my team. There is one other person that is close to my age, and then after that most of my team is at least six years older than me. While the interns make me feel old, the staff makes me feel like a child. This has been an interesting dynamic to work through, and this week another wrench was thrown into the equation. We recently brought on a new intern and she has been great. She is responsive, knowledgeable and helpful. I found out this week that she is older than me. This has really challenged my concept of age and power. Generally, we associate the progression of age with the progression of power. This concept is so infinitely ingrained into my brain that I refuse to disclose my age to this intern. This might be the wrong way of looking at this, but I feel like if she found out that she is older than me, that she would no longer respect me.

This is a societal issue that has been deeply ingrained into brains. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again- Millennials are completely changing the structure of our workforce. Startup culture has encouraged younger people to disregard the traditional corporate ladder structure of progressing in a career. We see younger and younger people starting their own companies and seeing success in their 20’s instead of working their way up in a company. This is exciting for those of us that do not want to wait to start our careers. For the younger people out there, please see this as a note of encouragement. Your opportunities are endless. At the end of the day, age really is just a number.

-          Bria  

Laying a Foundation

Laying a foundation is very important …not only in a building’s construction, but also in the preparation of a child for his/her formal schooling.  If there are empty spaces left in that foundation, that which is built may eventually collapse. 

            As I was eating lunch today with my husband, I observed a small baby about six months old sitting at the next booth with his parents.  I was amazed to see the baby keeping perfect rhythm with the music playing over the speakers.  I thought to myself, “Maybe children today will be better musicians since many of their parents are of a generation that hasmusic playing in the background most of the time.  In fact, many of the babies probably were exposed to music throughout their mother’s pregnancy.”  Of one thing I was sure: this baby was keeping perfect rhythm with the music’s beat!

            I do know my grandson has a natural talent for picking up any instrument and playing music easily with it.  His mother played the piano and sang almost every day of her pregnancy and listened to the radio almost continuously.  Is there a correlation?  Several studies have been done in this area which show babies can remember up to four months and react to melodies heard in the womb. 

            I think the key for successful learning in children is building a strong foundation with repeated time and activity devoted to the desired outcome.  For example, a child will be better prepared for the school experience if the parent will make efforts to leave the child with other caretakers on many different occasions in many different situations.  It is an exhausting experience for my preschool teachers to deal with a child who has never been away from his/her mother for any period of time…until that first day of school!  A child must be prepared for that time of separation. 

            Children must be exposed to playing with other children before they can make a smooth transition to being in a classroom.  Even periods of play at a playground in a park or a play area in a mall can help the child to recognize there are other beings in their world with needs and feelings similar to their own.  Of course, at first, play may be only alongside of others rather than “with” them, but it’s a very important first step!

            Parents need to allow their children to fall down, pick themselves up, and go on playing in spite of the small scrape that is bound to happen with children at play.  Unless the hurt is bleeding or serious, the child needs to become resilient by going on with life.  The scratch can be treated later at a more convenient time.  Children of “helicopter parents” expect the whole playground to shut down when a scrape or tumble occurs, and their vocal “siren” to bring things to a halt usually is effective.  However, it does raise everyone’s stress level and takes time away from the limited recess period for everyone.

            I have been amazed at the parenting done by my teachers whose babies came to school with them every day.  I watched these one and two year old children play along with our regular students aged 3-5 on the playground.  Following the modeling of the older children, these little ones handled all things well, including climbing up ladders to the tornado slide and sliding down.   One of these children just finished her first two weeks of summer school camps as a three year old who will attend PK in August.  She was perfectly adapted to school life, meeting and interacting with new students, and doing classroom activities.  She did give a little whimper as Mom left for home, but she sniffed once or twice and went right on with school activities for the whole day.  I think she had a great foundation laid for a successful school career!  

-          Kay

As our family closes the book on the college years, my mind turns to those families anxiously preparing to send their loved ones off to college in a couple of months.  I remember stacks of boxes in the garage being added to daily with “just one more item he/she might need,” and the subsequent hauling “Beverly Hillbilly-style” of all that stuff to Chicago.  There is so much more to preparing a child for college, though, and it begins way earlier than the senior year of high school.

     There are three main areas of preparation necessary in secondary school:  1) balancing work and fun, 2) budgeting and doing chores, and 3) networking

      Balancing Work and Fun

      I have often told my students that college itself is not fun; it’s harder work and lots more of it.  If they make a plan that does not allow procrastination, though, they will have time for some of the best fun of their lives.  In my English/Lit class, the kids have a whole week to get their writing assignments to me via email… the final due date being Sunday evening at midnight.  Over my fourteen years of teaching at Lawton Academy, the number of students who turn in their papers in the first two days averages about two students a year.  The percentage who turn it in within an hour of the midnight deadline, however, is around 85%!  Since these kids have roughly thirty weekly writing assignments per year and I have them for multiple years, I get a lot of opportunity to talk to them about procrastinating – especially when the Internet goes out on Sunday evening!

     As a parent, you should be involving your teen in the process of deciding when to do homework.  Left to his or her own, most teens will put it off till five minutes before lights out, figuring you will let them stay up to do something “so important.”  This habit will not change unless you make it uncomfortable to do.  Preemptive:  let your teen set the time he or she will do homework, but make it known that you expect an appropriate amount of time be given each evening to studies.  Making the study area in a family living space where light monitoring can occur is not out of the question (and highly recommended).  If you do this in middle school, the habit will be established enough in high school to continue with less supervision.  You should also recognize that your high schooler is beginning to become a night owl, and as such, will be prone to fill the evening with social interaction and leave the homework for after the curfew you set for being in the house at night.  Setting the curfew at 10:00 p.m., for instance, allows for the teen to do the work from ten to midnight.  While some mothers are probably raising their eyebrows at this, doing the homework late at night is important prep work for college.  College students sometimes have to work in groups with people who don’t get off their jobs till late evening, and sometimes it’s your kid who is having to work a job and go to school at the same time.  They should not expect a solid eight hours of sleep in college – it’s not going to happen!

   College is the last opportunity your son/daughter has to really have fun with a large group of friends.  Help them to see that the fun of college comes if you actually get to stay there, and that won’t happen if they don’t make the grades.

     Budgeting and Chores

    I cannot believe the number of secondary students I see each year who do no chores and have a steady supply of money.  What horrible training for college!  I have been known to tell my students that the mother who does everything for them is crippling them so they will never leave her side.  If she truly loved them, she would teach them to fly. 

   In my own family, I continued the practice my parents used:  the children have chores because they are part of the family and they have allowance because they are part of the family.  The two are not related (they don’t get one because of the other).  The allowance included the amount needed to cover the expenses I expected them to pay and a little more.  In my better organized years, I did the whole budgeting idea with them:  some goes to tithe, some to wallet for immediate purchases, some to short-term savings (like for a Six Flags trip coming up), and some to long-term savings for college or a car, every $50 of which we would match.  I still like that plan a lot.

   I will admit that I used the allowance to teach.  My son kept forgetting to take out the trash.  My father pointed out that he didn’t need to remember; I would remind him each Sunday.  So, for a couple of Sundays, I didn’t remind him, and the trash didn’t get taken out (by him).  When allowance time came, I “forgot” to pay him.  He would mention it a day or so later, and I would say, “Oh, that’s unfortunate.  I forgot.  I promise, I won’t forget next week.”  Then I’d walk away.  It didn’t take long for him to get the point and remember to take the trash out!

    In college, your child will be tempted to spend money to go out - nightly, he will have to keep quarters to do laundry, and he will buy at every impulse.  You have simply got to teach your child to budget now. 

     Similarly, college students do not see the need to clean until they move out of the dorm!  You don’t have to make a neat freak out of them (because no one will want your child as a roommate!), but you can teach them how not to be a health hazard!  Doing laundry, cleaning sinks and toilets and showers, and mopping are three key areas to hit before heading off to college.

    Networking

    The whole point of college is to get a job at the end.  That will not happen if your child does not network during the college years.  Applications are a dime a dozen; the only thing that counts is who knows you.  Internships are a great way to get known.  When your teen chooses a college, make sure the town in which the college is located can support another person in the chosen field because the internship is likely to lead to a position.  If your teen doesn’t like the area or is in an already-saturated field, it is your turn to prepare… for him/her to move back home!

    Both of my children had work right out of college.  This is to their credit.  Both did the necessary interning and networking to get known by the right kinds of people, and both have achieved much more than their peers. When someone says to me that there are just not jobs to be had, I shake my head knowingly, but inside, I am thinking, “Your child didn’t network enough.”

    Networking doesn’t come naturally.  It requires confidence to walk up and introduce yourself to someone who could later help you.  To gain that confidence, you need to teach your children while in their teens to do this.  One great way is to volunteer in the community.  Volunteering requires meeting people, talking to them to assess their needs, and connecting them with those who can help.  There are so many opportunities for volunteering in the community, but very few of them will just let a teen come into help without the parent being involved.  Make this a priority; I guarantee it will pay off in the long run… the end benefit being that maybe they will become philanthropic when they reap the successes afforded them because you laid these foundations early!

-          Michelle

The topic of laying foundations is very interesting to me because I am in a unique position in my place of work to lay the foundation for something big. If you don’t already know, I work at a co-working space for physical product innovation and manufacturing. This space features 2.5 million dollars-worth of equipment, including laser cutters, 3D printers, SMT lines, woodworking tools, and more. While we have the space and we have the equipment, we are only three months old, and we are still laying the foundation for what this organization will be moving forward. I am a part of a small team that is building and shaping the foundation off which we will base everything we do.

This is both an intimidating and exciting position in which to be. On the one hand, being a large organization with a small staff means that each decision is more influential than you know. One mistake can cause major problems down the line for our predecessors. On the other hand, we are empowered to make a lot of the important decisions individually, rather than as a team. Everything we are doing right now is a foundation that we are creating and upon which we will grow.

There are a lot of times in our lives where we are laying foundations for what’s to come. Our entire education system is in place to lay a foundation of skills and information that will eventually prepare us for our work. If you have worked hard and laid a strong foundation throughout your schooling, it is easier to build a career on top of it. A shaky foundation or a foundation with some holes in it will not support a successful career without some problems.

This can also be applied in terms of personal values and ethics. Throughout our time growing up in our parent’s home, the foundations of our moral compass are laid and developed. This will come partially from us, but typically it is primarily from our parents. Laying a strong ethical foundation at a young age can keep you out of trouble as you grow up.

The foundation is an essential part of any structure. The key to foundations is that they are laid first. Building and developing strong foundations at a young age will help you succeed in creating a strong structure with your life. You can’t go back and redo your foundation after the building has started; anything after that is just repair work.

-          Bria

Finishing

    As of 3:00 p.m., Bria is now an alumna of DePaul University! Having practiced the routine last year for her undergraduate degree, we came well-prepared this year.  While others wait in 91-degree heat to leave a parking lot of a thousand cars while a thousand more try to enter for the next graduation, we are relaxing in our hotel room.  In honor of commencement speeches, here's a few thoughts from each of us:

     What looks like a finish is really a beginning, as all these graduates begin searching for work!      - Kay

     I'm losing a huge time-commitment, but I'm filling it as fast as I can with work!  IAM thankful to have a job, though.   - Bria

     "It's just you and me in the house now, JT."  sniff, sniff   - Michelle

    As I am fond of saying, there is no Land of Done.  Bria is not finishing... just transitioning. We wish you and yours a wonderful week, and we will write separately next week when we're not in Chicago.

 

             

    

Ambition

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

-Salvador Dali

 

In the past few weeks we have talked about qualifications and winning and topics that focus on one’s ability to achieve or move forward in society. Ambition is an interesting topic because without it, there is no way to succeed. It is important to be intelligent and talented and creative, but at the end of the day, ambition is what makes you reach for the stars.

 

Ambition is one of the best qualities a person can have. It means that they will stop at nothing to make their dreams a reality. Currently, I work at a co-working space for physical product innovation and manufacturing. Every day I get to work with passionate, driven people whose ambition has pushed them to believe in the reality of their dreams. I see people around me creating demand around an issue they care about and making job titles that did not previously exist. Not all of these people have an engineering background or the wherewithal to start manufacturing a product based off of one good idea. Ultimately, I see these people achieving great amounts of success because they did not let this barrier to entry stop them from making their product a reality. They had an idea, and their ambition drove them to success, disregarding a lack of formal education or experience in manufacturing. Without ambition, these people would not have succeeded in making their dreams a reality.

In many industries, one can observe this phenomenon of people, who on paper lack the necessary skills and education, achieving their dreams because an ambitious attitude pushed them to work harder than those around them. There’s a great article that is posted in the New York Times every Saturday. The New York Times Corner Office is an interview series conducted between journalist, Adam Bryant and a plethora of successful CEO’s across many industries. This article is different than many because it does not talk about the company, or sales or the future of the industry. Rather, it focusses on the executive’s personal life and how he/she got to this point in his/her career. Over and over, I see amazing people that have achieved great things with a variety of overwhelming circumstances. These people are successful, not because of their background or their education, but because of their ambition. Last week, the interview was with a CEO of a major software company. She talked about her first real job as an assistant to an account executive at a hotel chain. She noticed early on that all of the accounts executives had accounts that they cared about, and what she called “dog accounts.” She convinced the sales manager to give her all of the “dog accounts,” and in a matter of months, she turned all of the dog accounts into profitable clients. This was a turning point for her career, and it shows her ambitious character. Week after week, I read stories of individuals that took similar risks and chances to distinguish themselves and move their careers forward. This is all based on ambition.

As you progress in school and your career, what is your “dog account” scenario? What will be your hurdle to jump to meet your personal goals? The sooner you identify this, the closer you are to achieving your dreams.

-          Bria

Ambition…an eager desire for success, honor, or power… is usually considered a positive trait.  I especially am aware of this as I have just returned from a wonderful trip to the countries of Eastern Europe where my husband and I cruised down the Danube River.

            I saw ambition exhibited in many different ways as we toured ancient cities and reviewed our understandings of history.  As we climbed the steps of ancient Roman fortresses, I thought about all the successes that nation prided itself on – built upon its conquests of weaker nations.  Then I immediately found myself surrounded by structures that were conquered and lost by Napoleon and countless other monarchs through the ages.

            While the personalities who built the magnificent castles, fortresses, cathedrals and palaces   died, the displays of power and honor continue to be viewed by millions of visitors each year.  Most of the structures fill the cities with artistic beauty and even cause today’s bustling crowds to pause and just ponder the workmanship exhibited.  However, there was also the reminder of ambition at its worst: the parade grounds and government buildings built by Hitler. 

            As I met people in different countries, I was really touched deeply by the disappointment some expressed in recounting their struggles under the Soviet Union’s Communism.  Many were working very hard to accomplish success as they viewed it in American movies and music.   I noted the exchange rate of some of their coins to our U.S. dollar, and I realized how hard they would have to toil to reach some of the U.S. luxuries we take for granted.  It was a very humbling experience. (Think about $5 per liter for fuel!)

            However, I did note a spirit of ambition and drive in the young people of these countries.  People walked and rode bikes and generally seemed in good physical shape.  What struck me as noteworthy was the desire of these strangers to share with us their ambitions for the future.  It is almost like an electric current jumping from one person to the next, energizing all along its pathway.

            Finally, I now reflect upon the square in Hungary and an old friend of ours.  I remember how he told us he could trace the lineage of his family back five hundred years and how that family lost everything on at least three occasions.  The last was in 1956 when he and a friend ran from the Soviet tanks that were squelching the rebellion in his town.  Bullets took down his friend and missed him as he escaped only with the clothes on his back.  So he lived life to its fullest with fast cars, boats, etc. noting, “You can lose it all in a moment!” 

            The cathedral builders had great ambitions…perhaps to even reach heaven with the awesome spires on their structures.  My ambition in life, however, is to have made a difference just because I lived.  I felt a calling long ago to teach, and I’ve been very happy carrying out that task to the best of my ability for the past 50 years or so!

-          Kay

The problem with ambition is that it requires determination and hard work.  I hear a lot of people talk about “strong desires to achieve” something (the first part of the definition of ambition), but very few nowadays seem able to last the long time it sometimes takes to fulfill that goal.  I frequently tell my students that there are no cheat codes or Staples “easy buttons” for the task I’ve assigned.  Many don’t know what to do with that.  They just kind of stand around and wait for the allotted time to expire… or someone else in the group to do it. Is that really a problem of “nowadays,” though?  I mean, truly ambitious people never have been the norm. 

    After watching The Founder, the movie based on the McDonalds mogul, Ray Kroc (an appropriate name), I came to the conclusion that my brother was right.  He told me back in 1988 or so that I was the type of person who would invent a product or develop an idea, sell it to him for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and be content… while he took it and made millions.  I guess ambition has levels.  The McDonald Brothers were seeking an answer to long waits at drive-ins and frequent misorders.  They developed what is now the system known as “fast food.” My family and I want students to be able to learn without having to attend a sterile, silent institution.  Lawton Academy is a colorful, sometimes noisy educational facility with a proven track record of high achieving students. Both of us have been able to achieve a small nearly perfect solution.  Our ambition IS the solution

    Mr. Kroc’s ambition was success, and his success came on the back of the McDonald Brothers’ solution.  He achieved success, but the product was never quite as good as the original.  For that very reason, I know that this school could never be franchised.  The minute someone tried to turn it into a moneymaker, it would fail.  We succeed because we keep costs low.  Sure, it means we don’t turn much of a profit, but if profits are counted in the success of those we teach, we are indeed very rich.  Hmmm… our solution is others’ success… Go figure!

-          Michelle 

"Qualified"

Qualified is one of those definitions that means something slightly different to each person, depending on to whom you are talking. In terms of being qualified for a certain position, the definition is usually subjective because each person that weighs in on the definition will hold certain traits to a higher standard than others. For one person, it might be all about what school you went to. For another it might be all about your experience. Another type of person might not care at all about your background; they might just care about your motivation and work ethic. In each person’s eyes, checking that block makes you qualified for the position. But if we think about how different each candidate might be, depending on who ends up interviewing them, we see that the definition of qualified is much broader than it seems.

Qualified is a standard that we will face at several points in our life. As young people, we qualify for awards or competitions. This is important because it teaches us that there is a set of standards to which we will be held accountable for many things we do in our lives. Competitions establish a general knowledge of the concept of qualification as well as the pattern of qualification throughout our professional lives. Getting children to compete and succeed at a young age will better prepare them to compete and succeed in the workplace. Promotions depend on qualification, but there is also a competition aspect of promotions because you have to be more qualified than those around you.

The last interesting part of the idea of being qualified is being overqualified. As a young person, I do not typically think about being overqualified. But after I receive my MA in two weeks, there will be certain low level jobs for which I will be overqualified. Not all employers will tell you if you are overqualified because they figure that they are getting a great deal. It is ultimately your own responsibility to decide when you are overqualified for a position. This gets further complicated when you see a person that you know is way overqualified for the job they have, but they do it because they are passionate about the work they are doing. This is all to say- that qualification is subjective and sometimes it can be very important, while other times it is basically irrelevant. Early on we will have to prove that we are qualified in certain areas, but as we grow in our career we have more autonomy to choose whether or not we will abide by qualifications. Until then, do your best, play the game and work hard. That will get you far in life.

-          Bria

 

     I find the two definitions that come up for “qualified” to be somewhat ironic:  1) officially recognized as being trained to perform a particular job; certified, 2) not complete or absolute; limited.  I do not disagree at all.  My grandmother used to say of seminary that it “ruined some of the best preachers.”  She’d call it “cemetery.”  I have often told people that I don’t look for certification in a potential teacher; I look for people who are born teachers… people who cannot ignore the “teachable moment.”  It’s not enough to be “certified”; if not born a teacher, the certification does not make up for the fact that this person is “limited.”

    Don’t get me wrong:  I do believe there are safety issues that are addressed with qualification standards.  I’m not questioning the need for qualifying for a position or title.  I’m questioning the standards by which one is “qualified.”  That piece of paper saying the professional in front of me is qualified doesn’t mean a hill of beans to me if he doesn’t have the common sense God gave a goose!  And therein lies a great conundrum:  what would be sufficient qualification? 

1)       Knowledge?  Not just knowing a set of facts (Common Core) and being able to recall them for a college entrance exam, that’s for sure.  Knowledge, to me, requires apprenticing.  We get much better results when we train a person from within a given field as opposed to outside of it.  I personally believe that’s why so many choose to go into the business a parent was in… it was sort of an apprenticeship.

2)      Results?  Before I will book a hotel or order a product or go to a movie or use a particular doctor or dentist or realtor, I always read the reviews and seek referrals.  I then have the choice to use or buy or watch or visit.  Where are the reviews for teachers?  Where is the choice?  Hmmm.  Instead, we hang everything on test results, and we wonder why so many teach to the tests.  They’re very jobs hang on the results. I don’t blame any teacher who does so, but I also do not consider them “qualified” teachers.

3)      A test score?  How long has it been since you’ve taken a “qualification” test?  You have the test required to get a driver’s license.  I passed the test and entered the pool of licensed drivers.  After not one, but two wrecks in the first three years, could I be called a “qualified driver”?  (Only one was my fault, but that’s one more than I should have had!)  Some people are really good test takers.  I am not one of these people.  I especially hate the ones that ask you to choose the answer that best fits the situation.  In the practice tests, I actually verbally disagree with the published answers.  I have justifications for why I chose a different answer as “best.”  My father wisely told me not to put what I think, but instead put what a team of professionals in the field for which I am testing would pick because they made the test.  So, even though I may not agree, I try to answer like they would.  If I pass the test – not agreeing, mind you – am I then “qualified”?

   None of these alone can prove “qualification.”  Even combined, they do not guarantee it.  We are left to this:  only time will tell if someone is “qualified.”  If your doctor has helped you avoid dangerous conditions, then he/she is qualified to advise you medically.  If students of a particular teacher go on to great schools and become wise in their fields, then that teacher is qualified.  Who is the judge?  You are.  Just as “an audience” is the only thing needed to be considered an artist, a group of people who believe one produces good results in his/her given field is my standard for the title “qualified.”  Hopefully they’ve written reviews so we can all benefit!

 

-          Michelle

Summer

    Whoo-hoo!  It’s summer break!  Yes… teachers look forward it just as much as students do!  I’m not saying I actually take more than a week off during that break, but it’s a “reset”… a chance to go at it from a different angle – maybe perfecting techniques, but sometimes scrapping the old and trying something new.  I love that! 

     The last two weeks of school are done at break-neck speed.  I spent at least two nights till 1:30 a.m. at the school, trying desperately to stay ahead of the next day’s events.  This was my husband’s first year of teaching, and I was trying to ease the stress of the last days by letting him know about the abrupt end ahead. But I don’t think anything could prepare him for the rush, rush, rush, rush, and then OVER.  There was a little shellshock, but it’s three days after the last day, and now he’s busily making repairs around the school that there just wasn’t time to do during the school year. 

    I know there are those who find a two- or three-month vacation a misrepresentation of real life.  After all, what job in “real life” lets you have the whole summer off?  (Besides teaching, of course!)  I know that its reason is no longer a real reason. You know, to allow children to come home and help with the harvest.  But I have to tell you that I am in total support of at least two months off.  Not only does it give teachers and administration a chance to repair the grounds and rework ideas and such, but it halts contagious illnesses and makes the jump in maturity noteworthy to teachers and peers.

    You got yours when you were a kid.  Let them have theirs.  If your jealous, become a teacher.  There’s a serious shortage of us out here.  If you can stomach pay cut, there’s a summer vacation waiting for you!  Happy Summer!

-          Michelle

Some of my best memories are from the summertime. Growing up, I remember long summer days in Texas and Oklahoma, walking barefoot in the backyard and all over the neighborhood. There were no deadlines or assignments, just a curfew and an expectation to go to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. Those days have left more on me than just the freckles on my skin. They left a desire to be in the sun and to be careless and free again.

As I grew, summer began to fill up and become more structured. I would go to summer camps or work a summer job. Obligations began to overtake the time that used to mean relaxation. My freshman year of college was the last time I had a summer that was free of responsibilities. The next year saw summer classes and work. Now I am coming up on my first summer as a full-time employee. Being an events coordinator means that my summer is going to be the exact opposite of what I have described at the beginning of this post. I will spend every day, including many weekends, at work putting on events. I will work harder than I ever have putting on multiple events every weekday. I will finally be done with classes, but I will fill the time with work.

This is the hard part of growing up. Breaks aren’t as obvious or as relaxing as they once were. I’m realizing that if I want to take a vacation, I am going to have to schedule it months in advance. This is what you don’t realize as a child or as a young person. The concept of summer will drastically change during the different phases of your life. Unfortunately for most, the afore-mentioned careless summers will never exist for them again until they retire and their whole life becomes summer.


So what I am saying to the students out there is, enjoy your summers while they last. Make memories, make friendships, make mistakes. Live while you are young - as cliché as that might sound, it’s so important to remember. As an adult, you will never have so much time dedicated to relaxing and enjoying life. You will have to create your own “mini-summers” on the weekends and over the holidays. Use the time while you have it to discover what makes you happy, and pursue it. Give yourself something to look back on fondly while you sit at your desk in the middle of June on a gorgeous day. These memories will help get you through the periods of “winter” in your life.

                                                           - Bria

 

Speaking of summer vacations, Kay is on one for the next two weeks!  She'll write when she gets back. 

Promotion

Promotion…is certainly an appropriate topic at this time of the year.  My mind jumps quickly from one application of the word to another.  I am trying to get all the necessary forms and awards ready for our school promotions of students from one grade to the next.  I also am trying to sort through all the “promotions” being sent to me daily (along with phone calls) to join fundraisers to help our school.  I dismiss them as I always do with the answer, “We don’t do fundraisers…allowing our parents relief from the steady barrage of such activities at their door, at the local stores where they shop, and alongside the road as they travel through town.”  When the promoter tries to press me more, I ask what is the “profit” they take in compared to the organization they are “helping.”  This usually merits their response of “Well, thank you anyway.”

            I also entertain the thought that only in America do we pay pretty significant money to watch entertainment which is filled with close to 30% promotion of various products and services to purchase. My students are shocked at the thought that their internet is filled with promotions designed to “sell to them.”  Most of these elementary students argue that they don’t pay attention to the ad promotions.  However, when they bring a new product to school and are asked where they found it, their first answer is “On the internet.”

            Tomorrow will be a very telling day at school.  I just read an article about the new “fidget gadgets” that consist of three spinning wheels in a hand-held plastic contraption.  In the past three days, I have witnessed students buying these by the handfuls at the local one-stop shops.  The article I read quoted many medical experts that found no evidence that these relieved stress or served medically significant purposes for Autistic and ADHD students.  However, the article already pointed out the distractions caused in classrooms from these toys.  This promotion has gone viral thanks to the internet! Does anyone besides me remember the “pet rocks?”  That spread also, but at Model T-speed compared to the internet promotion of today.  What does the future hold for all of us?

            Finally, as I think of another “year’s end” of school approaching us this week, I am reminded that “the only constant in the universe is change itself,” so   I need to recommit myself to “promoting” the desirable things this world needs: love, goodwill, citizenship, and peace.  As the old poem goes, “I shall never pass this way again…”  Am I making a difference for the better in the things I promote? 

                                                                                                Kay

As a young professional and a person who has a degree in advertising, I have a lot of thoughts about promotion. In terms of my education, I have a lot of knowledge about promoting a certain product or person or event. This is a skill that has proved useful for my new position as an event coordinator. It is interesting to think of promotion through the lens of a young professional. The idea of promoting yourself or making yourself valuable enough and impressive enough that you are promoted in terms of position or title change is incredibly important.

 

Another way to think about promotion is in terms of moving up in the educational sphere- a graduation or promotion to the next grade. All of these ways of thinking about promotion have one thing in common and that is that it is incredibly important and vital to the subject being promoted (whether that be a product, event, concept or person).

So now that we know that promotions are important, how do we achieve them? This is the harder part. Going throughout school, promotions are a necessary part of continuing education. They signify a passage of time as well as a gaining of knowledge. As you grow up, promotions are increasingly harder to obtain. Elementary school promotions are more about teaching the child the concept of promotions and advancement more than anything. By the time you get to high school promotion, the stakes are higher and less people make it that far. This allows those of us who succeed in receiving the promotion to feel an attainable measure of success that, in turn, makes us continuously promotable to the next level in our education or career.

This practice establishes a pattern for success that is ingrained in us at an early age. We leave high school knowing the certain steps that we have to take to achieve success in our adult lives. The problem is, this concept is outdated. Things don’t necessarily work like that anymore. Yes, there are some jobs that still work on the traditional ladder of success with several promotions along the way. Other jobs will not include this traditional pattern to which we have become accustomed. Times are changing. Millennials are constantly challenging the traditional ways of doing anything, especially work. It is important to remember as you enter the workforce that things might not be how they are “supposed” to be. Jobs, titles, and needs are constantly evolving and that is causing a great push back to the way that things have always been. We have seen this start to trickle down into our educational system as well with the rise of open- concept schooling. Many schools have also started to adapt, rejecting a traditional model of education. My point here is that our society teaches us to strive for promotion, but the future is in adaptation. Being flexible, innovative and adaptive is much more important than moving up a ladder of success. If you can learn this before you begin working, you will be far better off and you will save yourself a lot of hardship.

-          Bria

Every year about this time, some school somewhere in America has a serious discussion about whether to have “graduations” or “promotions” in the grades prior to high school. It seems like either would work, but there always seems to be one who feels very strongly that the two terms are not interchangeable. Both are noteworthy occasions, but I will address only promotions on this blog.

      During school, it seems one is always in the business of promoting himself.  Students show us how quickly they can attain knowledge and how well they can retain and apply that knowledge.  They sing and act and play sports… all to gain notoriety, and, hopefully, scholarships to greater institutions at which to promote themselves so that they can, in turn, gain a job, in which they can once again promote themselves so as to gain better paying positions.

     Wow.  I teach a book in my AP English Language and Composition class called Everything’s an Argument.”  I thought that boiled everything down to a single action.  I guess I’ve pretty much done the same thing!

      Sounds kind of vain on our part, doesn’t it?  It’s not really, though.  The problem with waiting for everyone to notice what you’re doing is that every one else is waiting for you to notice what they are doing.  You know how you’ll wear something special or have a really great hair day, and no one even notices?  That’s because they have worn something special or had a great hair day themselves, and they are waiting for you to notice!

      So how do we teach our kids to promote themselves without turning them into egotistical windbags?  I’d say honesty is the best policy here.  We have to cultivate a relationship in which we can not only praise, but constructively criticize as well.  Some parents of our PreK students tell us of daycares where no criticizing or saying, “I don’t like that behavior” is allowed.  Instead, their misbehaving child has his attention refocused so that he forgets that thing about which he is having a fit.  Good grief!  Have children become that fragile?!

     It’s necessary that your child not be right or win every time.  He must experience loss while you’re there to respond to his reaction.  Gifted kids will accept the idea that you win because you are older and more experienced, especially if you praise their improvements from the last time this was addressed.  Protecting your kids from failure is an epic failure.  Teach them to recognize when they’ve done poorly and when they’ve done well.  Then teach them not to brag about accomplishments, but instead bring them to someone’s attention when those accomplishments warrant a promotion.  For example, a doubly-promoted student letting her peers know that she’s the smartest in the class will only cause them to laugh at her for something else – her physical prowess or her looks, for instance.  But offering to help with peer tutoring will cause the teacher to promote her mental abilities to the whole class. 

     As a teacher and principal, I will tell you what I look for when I seek to “promote” someone to a particular position or club (like student council or honor society). I look for the servant heart.  True leaders understand that great leaders lead from the front.  The kid who thinks beyond herself to the needs of others is potentially a great leader, and that’s a promotion worth pursuing!

-          Michelle