TEDxBuffalo - Stacey Watson - Rebooting Education in Our Urban Core

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4CgNNdlHo

DROP-IN NATION is based in Buffalo New York and is nearly a decade old.  

It uses Holistic Education Curriculum  designed for Drop-out Recovery.

7,000 students drop-out everyday in the USA.

73% students attending DROP-IN NATION go on to College, job training or employment.

The major informers of DROP-IN NATION are:

Holistic Education:  Our children are people

Circular Reasoning:  Our children are complex

W.E.B. DuBois:  Theory of Double Consiousness

Jean Baudrillard: Theory of Cultural Industrialization

Relevance

Flexibility

Focus on Reading and Thinking

Love - without this, nothing else matters

It's almost 20 minutes long.  Check out 12:30 and Euro-centric and Circular Reasoning.  The idea that they survive and someone loves them is what everything else is based on.  There are even Yoga classes!

 

New Health Reference Sites

http://www.myhealthreference.com/

Answers to your health questions ... a Telus sponsored website addressing everything from diabetes to mental health to bone and joint.  I'm curious, from your expertise area, how you feel about the accuracy of the information and what you think about it being sponsored by a corporation?

BC also has the:

--> #8-1-1 HealthLink line http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/contact.stm 

--> #2-1-1 Community information line http://bc211.ca/index.html .  

Do you find people and families in your circles are using these supports?  Are these programs designed well?  Easy to use?

It's supports like this that I share with the Family Places (Family Resource Programs or FRP) where I work.  Many of our families are computer savvy and have access to the internet.  They feel confident navigating through a well designed website and are curious about new information.  When they arrive at Family Place, the parents are quick to share what they've learned with the other parents.  The families self-select if they use the information or not.  Overall, I am glad these three sources of information are readily available to the families of BC. 

MaJenDome

MaJenDome
is a movement that recent author, Elvin Freytes, wants to spread around the world.  His book, Hello My Little One, It's Me Your Father, invites fathers to read daily to their child, while still in the womb.  This piggybacks on research regarding how newborn children recognize and prefer their mother's voice over other voices.  This book is a great tool to encourage both parents to bond with their child before birth, the underpinnings of a secure foundation for the child to grow within.  It will be interesting to see how this idea catches on!  

Health and Melanoma

http://www.thatvideosite.com/v/3386

Easy to understand and informative

Where My Journey Leads

As I've embarked on my MEd journey, some people ask me if I know what I'm going to do with my degree or if I have a plan once I'm done.  To be honest, I don't have that nailed down right now :)  With that in mind, I've appreciated articles found on  http://www.keithferrazzi.com/   This is a part of a series that you can buy.  I've not, but I like the reflection and strategy Keith uses to explore, weaving in multi-layers.  I like looking for emerging patterns.  This exercise isn't rocket science, but I've wondered where our journeys will take us and where each of us will be in the months following September 2013. 

Onward and upward - further in and farther up.  

http://blog.mygreenlight.com/2011/12/the-five-lists-you-need-to-set-the-right-goals-this-year/

Click where it says "Click Here" :) and a pdf appears that has Interview Yourself to Invent Your Future Career.



Interview Yourself to Invent Your Future Career

Keith Ferrazzi

Finding your passion, discovering your strengths, and most of all MAKING IT HAPPEN is not as easy as it sounds.
Keith Ferrazzi developed this series of questions to help friends and clients create a future vision for their career. For each question, you don’t need sentences – just make a list.
Tip: Find a quiet place and give yourself an hour to work through the lists.
 

Once you’re finished, search for reoccurring themes and intersections. Circle things that stand out to you. Is a future vision emerging? Create a long-term goal – in the next lesson, you’ll be ripping it apart with trusted friends and colleagues, so don’t worry about whether it’s “right.” It’s just a step in the process.
 

1. What are your dream jobs? List every profession you’ve ever dreamed or thought of having.
You wanted to be a fireman? Write it down! Pharmacist? Great! Put it on the list. The idea here is to brainstorm – don’t limit yourself by what you feel is “possible.” You will start to see patterns among the jobs you list here and similar traits between them. That’s the real value, so the more inputs you have here the better.
 

2. What are you good at? List your strengths.
This step should be easy, since if you’re working through Course III and just spent time evaluating your strengths. But with this list, think more expansively than you might have so far – we’re brainstorming, so list everything. Are you good at cooking? Explaining things to people? Are you great at keeping your house organized? Are you a great manager?
 

3. What are you not so good at? List your weaknesses.
We all have weaknesses, or things that are NOT our strengths. This exercise will help prepare you to choose a soft skill gap to work on in Course III Lesson 5. Be honest here – you will find that often these align with unhappiness. Think about times when you’re unhappy: do you hate doing paperwork? Maybe it’s because you’re not very good at administrative tasks. Are you uncomfortable in social situations? Maybe “being social” isn’t a strength of yours. BE HONEST in this exercise. And ask your family, friends and colleagues for their insights.
 

4. What makes you happy? List every little thing that’s ever made you happy in your life.
Happiness is one of the most important things in life. Who doesn’t want to live a happy life? If you want to find your passion – something that will allow you to be great – then it must also make you happy. Think about every little thing that you’ve ever done that makes you happy - spending time with your kids, tearing apart a computer and putting it back together, running miles and miles until you can’t run anymore. Your list of “happy things” will help you figure out first what it is you DON’T want to do; then, you work with this list to identify a career that incorporates one or more of these things in a big way.
 

5. What companies and/or people you want to work for? List them!
Have you always wanted to work for a particular company? Or how about that woman you’ve read about in the WSJ and respect so much. Make a list of all these companies and people. This will help guide your search after you’ve made all your other lists. This is one of the first steps in crafting your Relationship Action Plan. Don’t forget to do this one – it will guide you into action.
Get started and make your lists!

Interview Yourself to Invent Your Future Career

Keith Ferrazzi

Support for our Brains :)

http://www.terrysmall.com/archive.asp

 I listened to Terry speak to parents and their high school kids when my son was in Grade 7.  Jim in now 21, so that was a while ago!  Terry is super informative and gives out tips that are easy to apply, like if you are thirsty, your brain is already dehydrated, so drink before you get thirsty.

Terry Small, B.Ed., M.A., is a master teacher and learning skills specialist. He has taught for 28 years at elementary school, highschool and university levels. His knowledge, warmth, humour and dynamic presentation style have made him a much sought-after speaker at workshops and conferences. Terry has been on television, the radio and in the press. He recently appeared on BCTV, CKNW and Student Success. He has presented his ideas to over 95,000 people.

Terry believes, "Anyone can learn how to learn easier, better, faster, and that learning to learn is the most important skill a person can acquire." He guarantees better grades in less time, increased confidence and more fun in learning!

Terry's wealth of teaching experience and extensive involvement in the development of study strategies and techniques make him an outstanding resource of the educational community. He resides in Vancouver, Canada, where he is a frequent lecturer at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.

Terry Small's Philosophy is simple: "Success is a skill anyone can learn."

Doug Brockway - Relevant and Interesting E-Newletter

http://www.brockwayservices.com/

I heard Doug speak a few years ago.  I find his e-newsletter helpful.  This month, one of his articles suggests:

Begin by setting hourly beeps. Each hour when your watch, computer or phone beeps, stop whatever you’re doing and ask yourself two questions:

1. Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now?

2. Am I being who I most want to be right now?

I certainly can become distracted by the littlest thing....I'm going to try this!