Crazyness of college admissions

I thought this article would be appropriate for what you may or may not be experiencing in your own lives right now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/opinion/bruni-our-crazy-college-crossroads.html?ref=opinion

In it, Mr. Bruni describes how the name of the college may not be as important as many people think it is. Please read and discuss your thoughts since your probably grappling with many of the issues he mentions. Is the name of the college important to you? What are other people saying?

Are Robots the future?

The internet is all a buz this week over this Bill Gates interview.

http://bgr.com/2014/03/14/bill-gates-interview-robots/

Over 5,000 people commented on Reddit about this article. What's your opinion? Is he right? What if he is? How are you going to prepare for a robot future?

How important are grades and GPA?

I think one of the misconceptions that schools help foster is that grades are essential to your success. While getting good grades will help you and are noble to achieve, they are not the most important element of your education. 

An article that is getting a lot of buzz lately was written by Thomas Friedman from the NY Times.  He went to Google to interview their Senior VP of People Operations to find out what they look for in their new hires. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html

Please read and for our blog discuss if you think you would get hired by Google any why. 

Are you drinking the (tech) cool aid?

Take the Stamford Test here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/07/technology/20100607-distraction-filtering-demo.html

One of the biggest problems addressed in the video was that people are slower when switching between tasks. Meaning they are not concentrating on what they are doing and therefore do a poor job on the task at hand.

What is your experience? Do you a multi-task? What did your test results show? What is your experience in the real world? Do you have the phone next to you when you do homework? Do you find it hard to concentrate with all the distractions around you?

Jasmine

Hi ladies. Happy New Year. The New Year often brings thoughts of renewal and resolution. A fresh start and new beginnings. I wanted to start this New Year by looking back for a moment and pausing to remember Jasmine. Whether you knew her well or not, it is important to take time to reflect on the powerful moments that occur in our lives. They are signals to us to remind us of how precious life is, how quickly things can change and why we should remind ourselves to make the most of every waking moment.

I had the pleasure of having Jasmine as a student. She sat at the LabMid1 computer. Everyday she came to class with a big smile and a pleasant, humorous way about her. She sat next to Ashley Michel and the two of them together were hilarious.

Another thing I really appreciated about her was that she challenged me to be a better teacher. She was extremely bright, especially in math, and I wanted her to excel as much as she could.  She wanted to learn and was full of life and was a perfect example of what you can make of yourself if you work hard with a smile.

If you have some thoughts or memories you would like to share please feel free. Or take a moment to reflect on these thoughts: Did the news of Jasmine cause you to reflect on what is important and perhaps change the way you see things? What are you going to do with your new beginning to make the most of your time?

Changing the Education Paradigm

Sir Ken Robinson shared with us his problems and thoughts about the state of public education in the US. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Particularly, how a revolutionary idea like public education has devolved over time and perhaps become a symptom of what ails our society.

In another video on the same topic, Sir Ken describes the story of Gillian Lynne. Ms. Lynne is a famous choreographer of the musical CATS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Lynne and many other Broadway plays and musicals. Her story is interesting to our topic because she was famously doing poorly in school and in particularly had trouble sitting still. Ms. Lynne was saved by her thoughtful principal, who instructed her parents to take her to dancing school rather than sit in classes. Today it is probably common that Ms. Lynne would have been medicated, told to calm down and worse, missed her calling to become one of the greatest choreographers the world has known.  

Change is hard. Not only for an individual but imagine changing and entire school. What would you do if you were in charge? What changes would you implement to make education more meaningful to young people? What about here at St. Saviour? 

Fake it till you make it...

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident -- can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.

What is your impression of "power posing"? Have you found yourself in circumstances where you feel power less? When? How does it make you feel? Try "Power Posing" next time and see if it works.