“Unplugging” is something that is going to become increasingly difficult to do as we become a more connected world. The place I work gives me the opportunity to see and experience cutting edge connected devices. IoT, connected homes and smart assistants are becoming more and more common and the future will see even more of this type of technology.

In many ways this innovative technology brings with it a lot of exciting capabilities. The problem with the increase in smart devices is that it is much harder to unplug. Unplugging from time to time is important for our mental health, personal relationships and ability to take a break. For me, I see unplugging in two categories: unplugging as a social/gaming addict, and unplugging as a workaholic. In general, you can apply these categories to different age groups, but there are exceptions.

For kids, and younger people it is easy to become obsessed with technology whether it be gaming, social media or binge-watching television on streaming services. Between your phone, your tablet and your laptop (assuming most kids have at least two out of three), it is hard to put the technology away. Even when we manage to set the phone down, notifications pull us back in.

There is a similar issue with people who cannot leave their work at work. Many of us have our work emails connected to our personal phones and computers. This means that even after we leave the office, we will still receive email notifications to our phones. This makes it incredibly difficult to unplug because we can get pulled right back into work with just one email notification.

Both of these examples are incredibly common and contribute to a lot of larger issues in our lives. It’s important to find ways to unplug and invest in your personal relationships in the real world. This is the time of year where we come together and celebrate with our family. Take the time this holiday season to unplug and invest time with your family face to face.

-       Bria

 This last Wednesday evening, AT&T lost coverage of about a third of the country, including the Oklahoma and Illinois areas. Bria and I tried repeatedly to call each other, texting back and forth our frustrations with dropped calls. Since I was passing an AT&T store on my way to choir, I texted that I would stop to see if there was a problem with our account. The place was swarming with people with the same idea. About that time, Bria sent the outage map, and I shared the info with all who would listen.

    I eventually figured out a back door (turn airplane mode on for thirty seconds and then off to make calls), and Bria and I were able to successfully share the worries and triumphs of the day!

    You’d think we didn’t talk every day. If we were that disturbed by the breakdown of our communication channels, I can just imagine what those who urgently needed phone communication must have felt.

     This week my family will willingly unplug ourselves (somewhat) from technology by traveling to an isolated resort in the Ozark hills for Thanksgiving. I’m actually looking forward to the unplugging… mostly because I’m authoring what’s “unplugged.”

     Therein lies my thought for this week. “Plugging in” implies a choice on our parts.  When I was a kid, we did things just for the pure joy of it.  Kids today have pressure even in the activities they enjoy.  

    Wanna play soccer?  You need to be on a traveling team and give up all your evenings and weekends.  I mean, don’t you want to be a professional athlete?  Then you gotta work!

    Heck, kids even have pressure on their video games.  Until recently, I’ve been playing Candy Crush fairly anonymously.  Somehow my phone linked Candy Crush to my husband’s Facebook account.  Now I know how I have done at each level compared to all of our friends who play.  Talk about pressure.  If I know, then I’m sure they know, right?!  

.    As our children become increasingly “plugged in” to real life, it is important that you teach your child how to “unplug.” Daily your child should have at least thirty minutes of activity that is in no way dependent upon technology or a deadline or practice. Everybody needs something they do just for the joy of doing.  Even just sitting down and talking would be great. I think that’s why Bria and I were so desperate to talk. Even though we have to do it via technology due to distance, our “hashing out the day” is our unplugging activity.

     Here’s hoping you have a Thanksgiving full of unplugged activities… on your terms, of course!!

                                                         Michelle

Honor

   To honor someone is to hold him/her in high esteem. This weekend our nation “honored” veterans. I am married to a veteran; we had ceremonies for Veterans Day throughout his military career. Now that he’s retired, I have to admit that the holiday has lost some of its ceremony. One of our young students this week couldn’t understand why we would need a holiday for soldiers. By the end of a video that age-appropriately explained “why,” there were many kids crying. I think those tears are the definition of “honor.”

    Are you familiar with the term sweat equity?  Sweat equity is a person’s contribution to a project in the form of effort and toil.  Soldiers certainly have “sweat equity” in our nation.  Anyone willing to give long hours (sometimes in the form of a year-long deployment), hard work, and possibly his own life for a project (in this case, a nation) deserves to be honored.

   To honor something is to fulfill it - as in a commitment, obligation or agreement. My husband is honorable because, when he makes a commitment, he keeps it. He and I have vowed to stay married till death. There have been tough times, but God offers healing that helps us honor our commitment.

  Honor can also be a noun, though.  An honor is a special distinction for bravery, achievement, or respect.  The Medal of Honor is our nation’s greatest military award.  It is awarded to service members who distinguish themselves by acts of valor, which means strength of mind or spirit that enables them to encounter danger with firmness.  

   How does one learn this bravery?  The short answer is that it must be taught.  I encourage you not to shield your children from the truth of what soldiers do.  Veterans Day may be over for another year, but veterans themselves are everywhere.  Get your children involved with the people who gave them their freedoms.  You could take a Sunday once a month to go visit veterans at the VA Center nearest you.  The very least you should do is make your children aware of the history of our country… of the sacrifices that were made by honorable men and women to give them the lifestyle they so enjoy. Honor their sacrifices by making sure your children know about them.

-          Michelle

                Honor is another one of those words that can be a noun or a verb.  In retrospect, I think I see more usage of this word in the noun form than I do in the latter.  For example, almost every organization gives some award of honor to its members.  Sports groups have especially overused this award by giving every participant a trophy or medal regardless of team outcomes, standings , etc.  I am not trying to be the Grinch who steals Christmas, but I am reacting to the speeches I hear students make to one another: “Don’t worry.  You’ll get a trophy (medal) anyway.”

                I would much rather see students and people in general practice the verb of honoring.  Start with the commandment from God, “Honor your mother and father that your days may be long.”  It is the first commandment with a promise.  The U.S.A. is definitely behind the curve among nations of the world in honoring our elders.  When I show a film of family life in other countries, my students always react to the difference in cultural treatment of the elders.  They can’t imagine letting grandparents and parents eat before they partake in the meal.  Most love visiting with grandparents, but can’t imagine having their grandparents live with them and then being given the place of distinction.

                I am alarmed by the rewriting of our national history.  History is what it is…the past is done and gone.  However, removing all distasteful aspects of it does not show honor.  I heard one woman from the deep south make the following remark upon being told another statue or school’s name was being taken down: “How many times must we lose this war?”  As she lamented, the war is over.  Nothing can erase what was done.  However, the same monuments and nameplates can serve as reminders that will never allow us to forget.  As humans, when we forget bad happenings, we often have to relive them to understand once again the terrible lessons our forefathers lived to regret.

                Today we see people taking sides about honoring our American flag.  I am in the ranks of those who teach our students to say the pledge and salute the flag.  I see it as the perfect time to get them to pause from all the noise, video, technology, and worries of each day and think about people who gave their lives for the continuation of our American way of life…which is summed up in the word “liberty.”

We are the beneficiaries of freedom bought with life blood.  It is only fitting that we should honor those who valiantly gave their lives to help save ours.  In this age of political correctness, we should be more aware than ever that “lest we forget” should be our theme.  Even my own church forgot to honor our veterans today.  This was a first for as long as I can remember.  In closing, I pledge to do all I can to teach my students and to practice myself the art of “honoring.”     

-          Kay

In light of recent events, the word honor has come up in our news cycle a lot this year. Unfortunately, a lot of the usage of this word has been in regard to victims of fatal shootings that have characterized 2017 in the United States. People come together to honor the memory of victims and to honor their families. Memorials honor their memory. Unfortunately, the honor is all retroactive. We have no precautionary implementations that could keep this from happening; instead, we honor victims post-mortem.

Today is a day set aside to honor the brave men and women that defend our country. All around the country there are parades, services and events regarding our Armed Forces. The word honor will take on a different meaning today than most other days. It is a word that will not only describe the dead, but also the living who are willing to risk their own lives for our safety. These people will be honored today using the primary definition of the word. The rest of us fall into the secondary definition of the word: having the honor of living in the free country.

This sentiment is not talked about nearly enough. With the current state of the country and its leadership, it is easy to believe that we are unfortunate. The truth is, anyone in this country is privileged and lucky to live here. Those who we honor today fight for our right to remain a free and democratic society. It is our honor to be allowed the freedom and opportunities we have in this country.

The United States is not perfect; there are a lot of problems. As we learn to deal with our demons, we will honor those who have lost their lives, those who fight for our rights -  and we will continue to understand the honor it is to live in this great country.

-          Bria

Confrontation

Confrontation is for some people like an energy drink, giving them the drive to make even the smallest mole hill a mountain.  For me, the opposite is true: after a confrontation, I feel drained and exhausted wishing to never repeat such an experience again.

            No matter which side of the coin one may find himself, confrontation is always a very emotional experience.  I am one of those people who play “what if” and “he will say…then I will say” mind tapes over again and again the night before.  Typically, the confrontation is never as bad as it seemed during my mind-rehearsal all through the night.  It always ends with some sort of resolution, right or wrong, depending upon whose viewpoint.

            As I have grown older, I have found that confrontation is better than ignoring a situation in hopes that it will go away.  In fact, people often find out that the perplexing situation exists only in one mind, and the other party is totally oblivious.  For that reason alone, I have learned to just go ahead and acknowledge the white elephant in the room. 

            My husband learned over time that it was never good to confront a problem until the persons involved had a chance to get emotions under control.  Thus, he always said, “Kay, I have an issue which we need to discuss.  I’m too upset now, so let’s make an appointment to talk this afternoon.”  This has been much better than both of us justifying our positions in emotional voices.  The cooling off period helps get thoughts together.

            During my career, I also made it a habit to NEVER talk about a problem over the phone.  Body language is an important ingredient in communication.  Phone conversations leave that element out.  I am straightforward in any issue…I don’t beat around the bush.  As an administrator, I would always call everyone involved in a situation to sit in together to discuss it.  That way, there could be no “she said” or “he said” without verification by the person who was also present.  However, I once had a staff member who, when she was confronted within the group meeting, would plead, “I just can’t remember what I said.”  Like President Reagan, it was hard to get past that stalemate.  I often wondered if she found herself suffering dementia as she grew older.  I do know that the immediate effect was that she lost people’s confidence in her word.

            Report card grades often bring confrontation to a school.  The best way to prevent a   confrontation is to keep the lines of communication open and flowing between student, parent and teacher.  It is impossible to adequately fix a student’s problem if he/she is not present and included in the meeting set to address the problem.       

-                                                                      Kay

I know we say that there are people who love confrontation, but I don’t really believe that. I believe that there are people who love to argue and to boss to demand their way, but when it comes to attending to a difficult situation – especially one in which someone has messed up, I think even the most argumentative would rather not do it. See, the key difference between confronting and just arguing is the intent.  People who love to argue want only one thing:  you to see that they are right.  But a confrontation carries the intent of solving the problem.  Let’s look at a few scenarios.

    You are mad at a workmate because she took forever at the copier, and you were in a hurry.  So, you told everyone but her how you were inconvenienced.  She confronts you to explain that what she was doing has importance to her, and she’d really appreciate if you didn’t belittle her work.  Ouch!

    You’ve been friends with this couple for years.  Now, having been married for almost twenty years, he tends to put her down in front of all of you.  So, you confront him and ask him to leave those issues at home, as it makes everyone there uncomfortable.  Not a fun task!

     One more, in cleaning your child’s room, you find something you do not want to find.  You simply have to find out more because of the danger it could pose to your child, but you know a confrontation is going to result in yelling, lying, and accusations.  Nevertheless…

     Have I made my point yet that confrontations are not desirable activities?  We cannot avoid them, though.  In my early career, I dreaded the words, “My mom wants a conference.”  We teachers never get to prepare for a conference the way the parents does when all we know is that the parent wants one!  I guess that’s a two-way road.  Anyway… I would spend all night going through all the events of the past two weeks, trying to find some way in which I had offended or slighted this kid.  Often times, the conference would be to ask for more math help.  Worry wasted!  There were times, though, that I knew exactly what I’d done, and I knew I should have been the one to call for the conference.  I feared owning my problems, though.  I feared the confrontation.  It’s only in my later years that I have come to embrace the conference.  Confrontation is going to happen; let’s get on with it.  If I let it wait till tomorrow, the conflict my mind dreams up will keep me awake all night. 

     Would you be surprised to know that the more I embrace the conferences that might lead to confrontation, the less confrontations I actually have.  Nothing diffuses the situation as quickly as ownership of what I know I did wrong!

     I guess what I want to say to you today is to teach your children that sometimes people call you on your bluffs.  That’s okay.  If everybody likes what you’re doing 100% of the time, you’re not making much of a difference.  Confrontations are most likely when you’re not doing things “like we always do.” So, let your child know that, with change, comes conflict.  And conflict can cause people to do things for which they need to be confronted.  Whether your child is the confronter or the one being confronted, the growth experienced from working through the issue is invaluable.  We should never shrink from an opportunity to grow!

-          Michelle

Confrontation is something I hate more than most things. I have a heightened sense of what others think of me and I need to be liked by people I come in contact with on a daily basis. At work, we have 300+ members that use our co-working space as an office. On any given there are 100 people at a time in our facilities. With this, we have regulars that are there every day, and less frequent users that come in a few times a week.

I pride myself in knowing the names and company ideas of a majority of the people that work out of our space daily. I ask about their businesses and their families and call many of them a friend of mine. This is great for customer retention, but it can make for a very difficult situation when a member crosses a line or breaks a rule.

As many of you know, I run all of the events in our space. For members, room fees are significantly less than they would be the general public. This comes with the notion that they will be responsible for the event and for returning the space in the condition in which they found it. For the most part, members respect this policy, but when they don’t they do it in a large way. Typically, in the situation my staff ends up doing hours of cleanup and I charge a clean-up fee to the member.

This last week I had to implement a cleaning fee to a member that is generally very nice. This is literally my nightmare scenario. I spent two days concocting my email notice making it sound professional, yet sympathetic. I had several of my colleagues look over it and they all agreed it was foolproof. Well, apparently, it wasn’t because I received an email back saying that the member planned to dispute the charges. My manager advised me to send an email further laying out why we decided to charge this fee and then to go ahead and charge his card. I literally contemplated taking the next day off to avoid this person after sending the email. I spent all night worrying that this person would hate me and that he would convince other members to hate me, a guess what happened. Nothing. The charge was processed. We both came into work the next day. No words were exchanged. He didn’t tell anyone about how terrible I am, and he didn’t confront me in person.

The fear around confrontation is mostly associated with the story we create in our own head. We play through the scenarios and expect the worst when the outcome does not always match our expectations. Remember this when you are facing confrontation in your lift. It is a necessary evil that you will face many times in your life. Be careful not to build the story up in your head and create anxiety around a reaction that hasn’t happened yet. When confrontation arises, stand your ground, remain respectful and understand when you need to walk away. Remember that it will not always come to this, but be prepared for the situation when confrontation arises.

-                                              Bria

Exposure

   Anybody out there old enough to remember chicken pox parties? When I was a young mother with a five-year old and a six-month old, both with the chicken pox, I was somewhat bewildered when other mothers asked to bring their kids over to expose them to the chicken pox and get it over with. Imagine my surprise to find out people actually had parties just for this reason! Not that kids get chicken pox anymore, but could you imagine that happening today?

   There is definitely a different mindset in this generation of parents compared to mine. When complaining of a leg pain or a friend saying something mean, my pat answer to my kids was, “Life’s hard. Get a helmet.” Okay… not all the time… but I certainly did not lead my kids to believe that they were allergic to mosquitoes, that playing outside was dangerous, and that they should never expect to have mean things said to them.  

  As I write this, I am just home from a weekend of robotics competition with my students. I had 18 middle and high schoolers and one other adult (to help transport kids), and they really did a good job with hotel behavior and being where they were supposed to be on time. What they didn’t know surprised me, though: they didn’t know to take a clean plate up to revisit the buffet bar or how to open the bus door or any of the iconic rock songs the event DJ was playing. Okay, that last one isn’t necessary!

   Every time I take kids on trips, I find how little some of these kids know about the real world. The reasons are diverse. Many are too busy with extra-curricular activities to have a chance to experience “real life.” Some have been taught to fear things outside of the home, but some are just too into playing video games to go out. Newsflash:  the risk of exposure to undesirable elements they face online is exponentially greater than any risk they take playing outside!

   The lesson for parents here is: expose your child to the right kinds of things often. To allow the video game or phone to occupy a large amount of your kid’s time is to risk exposure to mean people, inappropriate content, and possibly even exposure of your private family information.

   I’m encouraging you to teach your children how to do the laundry and how to cook three or four meals. Take them on public transportation, and show them how to tip waiters and taxi drivers and such. Show them how to make a call on a land phone, and discuss current events with them. And, for Pete’s sake, teach them their address and phone number! I have high schoolers who don’t know that information! I know sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself, but by doing so, you are crippling your child for the demands of adulthood.

  If you are already preparing your children to one day leave the nest, kudos to you! You’re making your child more marketable for college and for a job. We live in a world that increasingly demands less and less of its students and more and more of its workers. You are helping to ensure that your child will stay in college and keep that job.

-          Michelle

Exposure usually has negative connotations for me.  I think of the time I wound up in a hospital during my college days for third degree sunburn caused by falling asleep while sunbathing in the Oklahoma sun.  That lesson was learned quickly.  There were other experiences that taught me to monitor exposure to harsh wind chills, rip-currents, and falling chiggers from wet Missouri tree branches in the Ozarks. 

            I had to stop and reconsider the positive aspects of this topic when I was given it.  Yes, as an educator, I do expose students to as many experiences as I can possibly conceive and afford.  I know that especially for gifted students, such exposure is usually necessary for them to try anything new and different.  However, once they have had a safe introduction to a brand new area of life, the creative juices usually start flowing and many successful experiences follow for them.

            On the other hand, I have to remind myself of that same experience I’m providing them, and I must be game for them to give me exposure to things from their modern world!  This is especially true for technology.  It will absolutely make my first graders happy when they see me go to my phone to look up information instead of grabbing the encyclopedia!

            But there are still things I regret seeing my students exposed to everyday.  I hate four letter messages on cars…my beginning readers are always trying to read signs… Ditto for shameless t-shirts worn by people who should know better!  I hate the exposure TV ads give to everyone about every kind of sexual aid and bodily disfunction on planet Earth.  Yes, I know I can just reach over and turn them off.  However, my students do not usually have control of the TV remote…so garbage in and then garbage out as the old saying goes.  In the meantime, I just keep talking to my young students about the fact that it takes so little to be above average in our world.  Then I encourage them to choose the higher ground and better path to travel throughout life.  

-          Kay

It’s important to expose your child to a variety of experiences to give him a diverse understanding of the world around him. What’s difficult is determining what experiences you will expose your child to and how much exposure is too much. Speaking generally, it is healthy to provide your children with unique and varied experiences to expand their knowledge of the world in a safe environment in which they are free to ask questions and discuss their feelings with you.

For instance, some parents choose to expose their children to movies with mature content at a younger age, while others keep this kind of media out of reach of their children. I personally believe that it is normal and healthy to steadily introduce this kind of media to your children as they get older. This can make children feel comfortable having conversations with their parents about concepts such as violence, drug and alcohol use/abuse, and romantic or sexual relationships. Opening the door to these conversations with your children can allow you to answer questions and provide education to your child in these areas.

Aside from exposure to mature content/experiences, it is great to expose your child to different cultures and backgrounds. This can be as simple as trying a new cuisine or as elaborate as planning a European vacation. Making your child aware of other cultures and ways of life will contribute to making your child more accepting of different types of people, traditions and backgrounds.

Lastly, expose your children to the positive things in life. Take that trip to Six Flags, go out for ice cream every now and then, let them experience things that make them happy. It is important to foster joy in your child’s life by continuing to expose him to things that bring happiness. All of this exposure will contribute to making your child well-rounded and more educated.

-          Bria

Disappointment

“There can be no disappointment where there is not deep love.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ll have to admit, I felt somewhat uninspired when I sat down to write about the topic “disappointment.” I did what any other author that lacked a creative direction might do, and I googled quotes about disappointment. This lead me to find the above quote from Martin Luther King Jr. This is not what I thought I would come across when searching for quotes about disappointment. I think this is a remarkable viewpoint on the concept of disappointment.

We as a society, suffer from a culture of disappointment. We have unrealistic expectations for most things and that results in a great feeling of disappointment. There are a couple of ways we can look at this phenomenon. We can see this as a tragic characteristic of our generation, or we can see it as MLK does. Disappointment comes from the fact that we care. We care about how we are perceived and about how our lives measure up to those around us. We care about those in our life and how they conduct themselves.

In the movies, it is stereotypical that when a child messes up and asks his parents if they are mad at him, the parent gives the cliché response, “ I’m not angry with you; I’m just disappointed.” For some reason this sentiment is much more striking than just anger. The notion of someone we love being disappointed with us cuts much deeper. Disappointment with causation, such as in the aforementioned case, is appropriate and even useful at times. Disappointment that stems from unrealistic expectations of those in our life is detrimental. 

Growing up, I remember some of my friends had parents that had incredibly high standards for their children. Parents, remember to be supportive and realistic about your child’s capabilities. Do not be disappointed in your child without reason, because he will internalize it. Give your children credit when they are doing their best; realize their capacity and build them up with positivity. Although your disappointment is coming from a place of love because you care about their success and future, remember not to be too hard on them. Use support as motivation for your children to create their own self-standards to live up to.

-       Bria

Disappointment can be such a bummer!  I used to deal with it as a child every time our family planned a vacation to visit relatives in the Ozarks.  I lived for those breaks that would allow me to escape from the city life and spend countless hours enjoying the many adventures that awaited my cousins and me roaming the woods and trails.  Just before we loaded the car with our luggage, the phone would ring and my father would inform us that the trip was off because he contracted for another trip as a truck driver.  Once in a while, we would get a shortened version of the promised two-week vacation.  The disappointments I felt seemed like the end of the world!

            As I look back over my life, I feel the greatest disappointments I have experienced have actually involved students I have taught in my classrooms.  Every teacher, I feel, has high expectations for the students they teach.  Yet, in spite of all we try to do, we watch some of our students make unwise life choices.  I am sorry to say that I have seen students who have become addicts, felons, and even one accused of shooting another person.  There are over a dozen of my former students who are already buried in cemeteries somewhere.

            It has become apparent to me that the paths and choices some students make follow a pattern that leads to destruction.  I recognize those paths, and I do all I can to put up warning signs.  Yet, I know the disappointment of watching another student choose those same routes.  It is such a common theme that I recognize it in famous stories and even in Jesus’ teachings about the broad road that leads to death.  It seems that the narrow road that is harder but which leads to life is filled with life’s challenges and hardships.  I guess it is that difficult climb that makes people stronger and more fulfilled in their lives.

            Because I have known the pain of disappointment, I try my best not to disappoint others who are looking to me.  At the end of each day, I review what I have done and weigh its worth and ask myself, “Will it matter that Kay Johnson lived today?”  If I have not made a positive difference, I ask God to guide me the next day to do better.  Thus, I have a mission for my daily life which I enjoy very much: preparing students to become a positive contributing member of society.    

                                                                    - Kay

As adults, we’ve learned to work through our disappointments with at least some measure of grace. Having to watch our children be disappointed is tough, though. Not at first… the little fits of a toddler not getting what he wants can almost be cute. I’m talking about the “not-making-the-team,” “getting-dumped,” “not-getting-in-to-the-desired-college” -type disappointment. It hurts us almost as much as it does our child. No matter the possible pain, do not avoid having these experiences.  What is the old phrase? Oh yes: “It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”

  Gifted kids are prone to fear failure. They would rather quit than risk failure. It’s my belief that that is the reason so many “lack” in life in comparison to their non-gifted peers. They don’t risk big, so they miss great opportunities. From the very beginning, you’ve got to teach your kids that it’s worth the risk of failure… that failure may hurt, but it’s rarely fatal!

   Engineering is a great place to start. Engineers don’t throw out an idea and start all over. They tweak the idea until they get what they want. They understand that the best ideas come after the first ideas are used up. Teach your gifted child that each attempt is just a part of the process, not an end in and of itself. Then when disappointment comes, you can be the shoulder to cry on, but you also help initiate the next step back to success.

-       Michelle

Communication

As someone who studied in the college of communication, I have heard many definitions of the word communication. In school I took six general communication courses as part of my degree requirements. Each of these classes started with a definition of communication, and not one professor used the same one. This scenario speaks to the difficulty of defining and understanding communication.

One of the most common textbook definitions of communication describes it as the process of generating meaning by sending and receiving verbal and nonverbal signals. This is a very basic definition, but it really captures communication as a process of interaction between two beings. Models of communication are based off of the process of a sender and receiver transmitting information.

This is the most basic description of communication, but it leaves a lot to be desired. It mentions the process without mentioning the complications. The problem with communication is not the process, but the mishaps that can occur when the process is disrupted by a distraction, a language barrier, a failure to understand tone/insinuation, etc.

When we think of everything that can go wrong when exchanging information between a sender and a receiver, the concept of communication becomes a lot more messy.

It's important to acknowledge how people like to be communicated with. Affective communication occurs when you understand how different people take in and perceive information. Throughout their lives, people will perceive information different ways. The way a child understands information is vastly different from how an adult would understand the same information. Other things that affect communication are a person's background, upbringing, status and culture. Remember to be mindful of these factors because this is the only way to effectively communicate with others.

-          Bria

     One always hears Communication is a two-way street, yet increasingly nowadays it is not. I’ve been teaching a business communications class to my high school students, and I note the consternation on their faces as I help them understand that the burden of communication falls on them as future employers. I understand that burden all too well. At our school, I am in charge of the announcement sheet, the calendar, follow-up phone calls and updated emails. There are just as many people for whom communication can’t come fast enough as there are those who have no idea there are announcement sheets and a calendar. It’s a tough gig!  I feel like I am communicating constantly, but I really have no idea how many actually read my messages.

  Another reason communication is one-way nowadays is because so many choose to use what I would call back door communication. Forms include texting, memes and tweets, and selfie photos labeled with location. It seems people would rather talk at people than to people. Hi.  I’m alive and I am here (location noted) today.  This meme sums me up today.  Word doesn’t have emojis, so putting a string of them to illustrate my point is out of the question, but you get my drift.

     Ironically, I have more students who talk incessantly than ever before.  I wonder if there isn’t a correlation between lack of communication and never really listening.  When a child repeats his story until he gets a reaction from me, I postulate that he is used to not being listened to, and he has learned to continue till someone listens. 

     With so many things competing for our attention today, I urge you to make the “live” communication a priority.

-          Michelle

Communication, in its truest sense, is a two-way street.  If it is not two-way, it is hardly communication at all.  The field of education has studied this topic again and again, and offers some of its findings.  Student learning seems to increase when communication between student and instructor is two-way, rather than “I lecture and you listen” communication.  Communication can be accomplished, good or bad, through body language only.  Specific outcomes must be kept in mind to facilitate good communication.

            If a school wants to have a good support group, it is necessary for the school personnel to communicate with parents often.  When educational staff and parents work side by side, a wonderful spirit of “ownership” in the school is developed, and pride is manifested.

            I have found through the years that first-hand communication is far more reliable than second-hand information.  One of the lessons I learned in my graduate courses was how to deal with a “Boss Cow” syndrome.  There is always someone wanting to fill any vacuum that may appear in an organization.  This move for power is usually accomplished by leaking important information which no one else knows about.  To counter such moves for power, an administrator needs only to feed that person the wrong insider information.  When it is leaked, the “boss cow” loses face and credibility.  Such are the games of administration!

            This blog site has taught me a lot about communication as I have seen the wide variety of opinions expressed by my daughter and grand-daughter.  Because we were each born in a different decade, word choices, idiomatic expressions, and emotionally charged words we use are as varied as the wild flowers blooming here in spring.  It has made me more aware of the need for me to check for my students’ understanding of the illustrations and examples I use when teaching them a concept.

            The process undertaken for the AdvancEd North Central team visit to our school was excellent in promoting communication among students, faculty and staff, parents and patrons.  The result of all that communication was positive support and a spirit of brotherhood in our school.  We’ve always had an open-door policy which welcomes parents into the school; however, good on-going communication has made the experiences even more enjoyable and fruitful.  

-Kay

Perceptions

         Perception determines the actions people take in life.  If the perception is correct, success usually follows action.  However, often times, the perceptions people have are tainted with biases and misinformation.  Thus, the results may be less than satisfactory.

            I am a realist, and as such, I try to paint an accurate picture of life’s situations.  I do not seek to hide my head in the sand such as the proverbial ostrich.  I try to choose my words and actions wisely so as not to offend the listeners.  However, I consider it wrong to paint a rosy picture for children when the surrounding situation is anything but rosy!  Gifted children especially have the ability to understand the vulnerabilities of life. 

            As we faced another week of a horrifying gunman’s attack upon innocent people in Las Vegas, I found myself having to discuss the event in my classes as students found a way to approach the subject.  These children are not deaf…they hear their parents talking…the TV and radio news blaring… and people on the streets discussing events uneasily.  My job becomes one of helping them to decipher and discern.

            Throughout my career, I have met parents who have sought ultimate protection of their children by expelling the TVs from their homes, stopping newspaper subscriptions, and allowing the children no interaction with technology which might bring them face to face with the reality of the world in which they live.  As time has passed, I have seen some of those same children emotionally drained as they tried to cope with some of the realities of life.  They just weren’t prepared to face such events.

            I believe in being proactive.  There is a wonderful web site that teaches children about 50 ways to escape from an abductor…some ways are absolutely brilliant.  How many people have taken the time to share such information with their children?  It is very useful information to have.  Most of my students have never sat with a parent and discussed a family plan for escaping a fire in the home, or how to find a family member should they become lost or separated from the family. 

            What I find really frightening is that most children only know a key to punch on their phone for an emergency.  They do NOT know their own home address, phone number, or numbers of other family members.  Their pact answer is, “My phone has the number for me.”  It has never dawned upon them that phones can be lost or broken…or even out of battery power. 

            I grew up right after World War II, so I was made to participate in the required bomb drills held in our schools.  I grew up studying the escape routes to exit St. Louis, Missouri, in case of a nuclear attack.  Even as a child, I remember questioning the possibility of escaping the city by way of one-way traffic routes.  If people were not polite and not used to taking turns in daily life, how would they be expected to do so in such an emergency?

            I try to give my students assurances that God loves and cares for us.  I tell them that we have been given a magnificent brain with which to think and reason.  Therefore, let’s learn common sense ways of dealing with the possibilities that unfortunate events might bring into our lives.  My strength in God and my prayer life have served to guide me through some pretty awful circumstances.  I seek to help these children find the same strength.   

-          Kay

There’s a new buzzword in professional development clinics:  generational fluency.  Generational fluency addresses the need for companies and businesses to recognize that they very likely have four generations of workers within their workforce, each with their own perceptions.  The four generations are the Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and the iGen, in order from oldest to youngest.  

     One can see differences in communication (face-to-face vs. text or picture), in the “work week” (traditional 40-hour work week vs. flex-schedule), and in the way workers get their information (supervisor vs. the Internet).  A lack of awareness of these differences can cause misperceptions about those in differing generational groups. 

     That last statement seems pretty obvious, huh?  My students and my own children, however, teach me every day that we do not think alike.  If I don’t take the time to understand what they are doing, I sometimes perceive that they don’t care.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, I find that my children and my students care a lot.  A whole lot.  More than I ever remember caring at their age.  Goodness, at my daughter’s age, I had been married for a year, moving straight from my father’s house to my husband’s house, and I was actually guilty of believing what everyone used to joke about:  “Of course, I still have money.  I still have checks!”

    I have encouraged my students to think of school as their job.  In fact, they do have “jobs” within the school day, and they get “paid” credit score points for the work.  Those points open up privileges.  I don’t think it’s the credit score points that motivate my students to take their jobs so seriously, though.  I think my students are more aware than any previous generation that jobs will be hard to come by as more and more employment is automated.  In an effort to distinguish themselves, they perform their duties with a maturity that is admirable.  Because of that, I take my responsibility to perceive their intentions correctly very seriously. 

    I’d like to challenge you today not to just assume that everyone thinks and acts as you do, and that those who do not are somehow subordinate to you.  With just a little bit of inquiry, you might find that what you perceived to be thoughtless actually might be very carefully thought-out.

-          Michelle

Nowadays we live in a society of perception versus reality. We are constantly seeing our lives through the biases of our own perceptions. The way I see something is not the way you see it and vice versa. The problem is that sometimes the way we perceive a situation is not based on reality.

As humans it is innate that we often react based on emotion. We perceive a comment as offensive when there were no harmful intentions from the speaker, or we assume a certain look from another person is more than just a look. This causes us to internalize emotions that should never have to exist in the first place.

I am definitely an offender of this issue. I wear my heart on my sleeve and take things more seriously than I should sometimes. This causes nothing but heartache and sleepless nights for me. A lot of people have this issue, and it is one that is hard to overcome. It’s so easy to read into a situation and let our own perceptions overtake the reality. This can be harmful because it causes us to make up stories in our mind that don’t exist. We replay and replay situations in our head, creating stories about what the other person was thinking, or his motivation behind using the words he did. This pattern is so easy to fall into, and it is incredibly harmful because it allows us to spiral into emotions and stories that don’t exist.

So how do we break the cycle? It’s not easy. You have to make a choice to give people the benefit of the doubt rather than assume the worst of people. You have to stop replaying situations in your head and take them at face value. You have to make an effort to stop assuming the meaning behind a look or something someone says to you. This is way easier said than done, but if you can start to accomplish this in some capacity, you will save yourself a lot of grief. Don’t base your feelings on your perceptions; live and work in reality to maintain your sanity.

-          Bria