Doc Meek

Archive for June, 2010

The best tribute to pay Dad on Father’s Day

The best gift to Dad is to remind him of his power to guarantee the learning success of his children, no matter what the task.

My previous article, showing how Dad guaranteed success for his little son who was learning to bowl, was posted April 14, 2010. If you wish to see that, click on the URL immediately below:

Guarantee Learning Success for Everybody

Learning fears and humiliating failures can haunt learning for life

When youngsters are first learning a sport, they often have great fear of failure. They fear that they will prove incompetent, that they will fumble and look stupid and be embarrassed and on and on.

Often these initial fears, if not “cushioned” in some way, are fully realized as the child attempts a totally new set of tasks, and then the stark memory of learning failure may haunt him or her throughout life.

“Cushioning” these learning fears in some way can mean the difference between ongoing success in school and life, and ongoing failure in school and life.

Sports leaders can guarantee learning success

My brother attended a baseball game in which his young son was playing, and was impressed to see that the team leaders had provided many ways to guarantee learning success, by “chunking everything down,” as they say, breaking the multiple learning tasks into more easily-learnable segments.

Dad was delighted. His young son was delighted too. He could “smell success,” almost before he got started.

The sports leaders were affable and kind, radiating a generosity of spirit (as opposed to aggressive competitiveness and outbursts of anger).

First, even though this was a baseball game, the leaders were using a softball, bigger than a regulation baseball, so that the youngsters would find it easier to hit.

Second, the leaders mounted the ball on a short stand at home base, at just the right height for hitting, thus providing a “batting tee” for the aspiring baseball players. This “batting tee” is analogous to a “golfing tee,” except of course that it holds the ball much higher off the ground.

Regular baseball rules were modified

If the batter swung and missed the ball right in front of him, a “strike” was called of course. If the batter knocked the ball off the tee and the ball rolled into “foul” territory, a strike was called. No “balls” were called. The young players either “struck out” or ran. No “walking.”

If the batter knocked the ball off the tee and it rolled into “fair” territory, the batter ran.

If the batter hit the ball any distance, he ran of course.

Most plays were won on errors 😮

The young boys had a ball (no pun intended)! 😮

The leaders had a ball. The parents had a ball. Other spectators and bystanders had a ball. 😮

And the young players more easily mastered essential baseball skills, guaranteeing learning success. 😮

No child cried (except perhaps when they fell down swinging or running) and no child stayed home the next time a game was scheduled. 😮

All the players were successful in learning how to play baseball. More importantly, all the boys felt good about learning and playing, and having fun in the process. 😮

These “learning success” feelings often last a lifetime, helping the child experience learning success in school and work. 😮

Parents and teachers follow the same principles for learning success

Parents at home and teachers in the classroom follow the same principles to guarantee learning success in all endeavors. This is not easy to do. It is, however, do-able:

(1) Make the starting point easy and enjoyable, perhaps even fun.

(2) Chunk down the learning tasks into smaller, more easily-learnable segments.

(3) Modify the rules when necessary; create a community of learners.

(4) Leave aggression and competitiveness aside initially, and perhaps always. It can help us be better citizens. It can help us achieve a more cooperative and successful society.

(5) Smile. 😮

(6) Smile. 😮

(7) Smile. 😮

We can all even use these learning success principles with ourselves!

If we all laugh more, and take ourselves less seriously more, almost any learning task can be done successfully.

With good memories that last a lifetime.

To lifelong learning enjoyment!

Doc Meek, Sunday, June 20, 2010 (Father’s Day)

At Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA

See full size image; Image may be subject to copyright.

Image at: www.maniacworld.com/three-bird-smiley-face.html ………………………………………………………………………….

Happy for No Reason

I had always thought I was willing to learn the lessons of life.

However, I had a distinct preference for lessons I liked, the “good things” that happened to me.

I had no real interest in the lessons I didn’t like, the “bad things” that happened to me.

Reminds me of Rich Little’s summary of his life:

“I’ve been rich; I’ve been poor; rich is better.” 😮

Happiness disconnected from life’s circumstances

Marci Shimoff interviewed many people and selected what she called her “Happy Hundred,” whose answers to,”Why are you happy?” were very interesting and very helpful, plus–in some cases–astounding.

One fellow said that he was happy because of his philosophy, which he actually lived. His philosophy was very short:

“I am grateful for everything–I have no complaints whatsoever.”

He meant it and he lived it. And he was happy. No one–or no thing–could take his happiness away.

I was so stunned when I read this that I nearly fell over. I am/was the world’s master complainer. About anything. And everything. Government, religion, weather, roads, enemies, friends. Ouch!

If I can’t complain, what is there to talk about?

I vowed I would adopt this man’s short philosophy. The problem is, I had very  little to say. I am so practiced in criticism and judgment, I hardly know how to say a positive thing (except when I am teaching children how to overcome learning problems of course).

When I am teaching kids and adults how to triumph over learning difficulties, I am the epitome of encouragement, smiles, hope and laughter. 😮

I love my work and I have no complaints whatsoever. It is a joy to see kids go from failure to success in school. Or adults go from failure to success in the home or at work.

If you wish, see my previous article on this subject, posted April 30, 2010:

Unhappiness is a learned behavior

To our happiness and even joy, eh?

Doc Meek, Saturday, June 19, 2010, at Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

P.S. “Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy–Video” (copy and paste URL below into your computer’s website browser line):

http://www.maniacworld.com/everything-is-amazing-nobody-is-happy.html

Photo from website below:

http://www.thefreelancefarmer.com/2010/04/digging-hole-to-china.html ……………………………………………………………………………………..

Active Learning means changing your mind, changing your behavior

I think it was Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist, who said that he trusted people with  their own problems.

Most of us don’t do that as a rule. We tend to want to fix other people’s problems, while ignoring our own.

I think Hellinger’s point is that most of us “like” our own problems, in the sense that when someone tries to relieve us of them, we dig in and demand our “right to do . . . ” whatever it is that we are doing [that is causing our problems].

Strange behavior, what?

As I used to say to clients:

“Most of us would rather keep  the familiar old problem, than face the scary prospect of the unfamiliar new and different behavior. What if we fail at the new effort? Embarrassing. Better to keep the old pattern than risk a new pattern at which I might bomb.”

“That’s ridiculous,” my clients would say. “You’re telling me I like my problems? The ones that I am so vociferously complaining about to you?”

“You don’t actually ‘like’ them; you just would rather have them, maybe somewhat like ‘old and difficult friends,’  than face an  unknown future, a scary future, trying to make new friends who may turn out to be worse than the old friends.”

The scary/wonderful future

Why don’t we just stop digging? Why don’t we admit that we really don’t wish to depart from our problems. Not right now anyway. Maybe tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . “and yet again tomorrow” [shades of Shakespeare] . . . or maybe next week? Next month would be a good time to take this in hand. Or maybe next year?

“Let us not fear the scary/wonderful future,” says my friend.

This new and different way holds life in its hands, not the the death of the tired old present problems.

The scary/wonderful new pathway is far superior to the present rut-torn disaster, eh? 😮

The definition of insanity

Photo from website: http://www.igopogo.com/cancover2.jpg ………………………………………………………………………….

Educator, Researcher, Counselor

Over the years, as I was helping families overcome educational and family problems, I became painfully aware of two things:

(1) The things for which family members and school students blamed others, often found their roots in their own behavior.

(2) The things I found the most frustrating and least rewarding in others were things of which I myself was guilty, often outside of my own awareness. That is to say, I was guilty of possessing the problems I was criticizing, and I was not even aware that in the eyes of others I possessed those very same traits.

Subconscious projection, as they say. (Isn’t all projection subconscious?)

Look to yourself

Sometimes when parents or teachers were railing away against their children or students, and they were particularly sincere in their own eyes, I would ask them quietly if they had ever had occasion to be guilty of the offense being railed against.

For example, the child or student may be acting in a selfish manner (it is objectively true that they are doing this), and I would ask the parents or teacher:

“Have you ever had occasion to be selfish?” Sometimes this would bring a thoughtful pause. As often as not, it would bring denial and defensiveness.

So I soon learned to phrase the question in a different way, after prefacing with my admission that I could remember times when I myself had acted in a selfish manner, not about the specific things the kids were being selfish about of course, yet I had acted selfish in different matters. Then I would tell them specifically how I had been selfish. Only then I would ask:

“What are some specific things about which you have been selfish in your life?”

As often as not, this would bring about a fruitful discussion which was more helpful to the kids than a lecture.

Complaints often point back to us

When I am complaining, I may not recognize that the problem at hand may be caused as much by me as by those upon whom I am casting blame. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Pogo, Walt Kelly’s famous comic-strip swamp character. (Was he an alligator or a crocodile?)

Pogo summed us up nicely:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Cheers!

Doc Meek, Thursday, June 17, 2010

At Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA

P.S. “Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.

“There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

“Forward!”

– Walt Kelly, June 1953

It’s OK to make mistakes; that’s how we learn

When this “truth sign” was first posted in a teacher’s classroom, some people complained that the teacher was condoning, and even encouraging, bad behavior on the part of students. “Not so, ” say Dr. Merrill Harmin and his predecessor in classroom effectiveness, Grace Pilon.

When students lose fear of failure as they are encouraged to risk giving wrong answers, they become more involved in their own learning, and they not only learn more, they enjoy learning more.

Likewise, teachers enjoy the daily teaching-learning activities more.

Dr. Harmin, in his book entitled Strategies to Inspire Active Learning: Complete Handbook (1995-2002), for teachers and students, acknowledged his deep indebtedness to Grace Pilon’s pioneer work in increasing student achievement. Using active learning strategies means that not only are students getting higher marks, both teachers and students are enjoying the daily learning processes more.

Dr. Harmin repeated this acknowledgment of Grace Pilon’s leading-edge work in his expanded 2nd edition, entitled Inspiring Active Learning: A Complete Handbook for Today’s Teachers (2006).

Photo of Expanded 2nd Edition below is from Amazon.com

Photos from WorkShop Way (TM). URL: http://www.workshopway.org

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We’ve been blogging about changing the world, or changing the world by changing ourselves.

Many have suggested that instead of the focus being on changing the world or changing ourselves, the focus should be on LOVE.

We are not talking about the popular culture version of love here. We’re certainly not talking about sensual love. We are talking “filios,” “brotherly love” or “sisterly love.”

We are talking about simply caring about others (say, children and students) in a genuine personal way, no matter what their academic performance is, no matter what their behavior is.

This is not easy. We do have to learn to love and respect ourselves first, completely, with our combination of strengths and weaknesses, as we learn to love students completely with their combination of strengths and weaknesses.

If love and respect are performance-based, if love and respect are conditional, they don’t work very well. Not safe. Not secure. No ultimate trust. Students need the trust to move ahead confidently.

Respect and love are effective!

And they are do-able.

Teachers or parents, for example, are not just simply purveyors of subject matter or rules.

In the classroom this translates, according to Grace Pilon, into paying attention to specific and obvious TRUTHS that apply to all of us, and certainly to students. She liked to see teachers put up LEARNING TRUTHS posters in their classrooms.

The LEARNING TRUTHS

• We respect the rights of others.
• It is intelligent to ask for help.
• It takes courage to be willing to risk.
• We are free to make mistakes while learning.
• Everyone has a right to time to think.
• We don’t have to know everything today.

These learning truths posters are not just for decorating the wall with “nice sayings.” The teachers refer to one or more of them daily, in the course of the day’s lessons, so that the students will learn how to apply them effectively. ……………………………………………………………………………………….

This applies to children in the home environment as well.

This needs more discussion in a future posting.

Filios, Doc Meek, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 (1st posting, morning)

Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

What can one teacher do?

I asked this previously here on THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE blog, posted on April 28, 2010.

That article detailed what an ordinary teacher, Miss “A,” did in a poor elementary school in a ravaged neighborhood in the city of Montreal, province of Quebec, Canada.

She simply defied the immediate evidence in the Grade One class in front of  her, and made sure each child knew she personally cared about them, regardless of their academic performance or personal deportment. What an achievement!

The students carried that remarkable Grade One experience with them all through school and into life. What an achievement!

If you wish to review that article, simply click on the colored title below:

What can one teacher do?

Someone thought, “Maybe that was just a “one-off” Canadian example

Image from: http://www.profile-comments.com/images/teacher/

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What about this example?

It was reliably reported to me that John Hopkins University did a retrospective study as well.

A class of grad students had been sent into a slum neighborhood to pick out 200 slum boys, aged 12 to 16. The grad students had been trained to do personal “workups” on each of these selected 200 boys and to predict which of them would end up in prison.

The result?

The prediction was that 180 of these boys would end up in prison (90%).

Twenty-five years later, more grad students were sent out to locate these boys. Apparently some tracking had been done in the meantime so that this task proved not impossible. Most of the 180 boys were located.

Big surprise!

Only 4 of the 180 boys had served time (about 2%), not anywhere near the high prediction.

Why? Why had most of the boys stayed out of prison?

The prediction instrument used had validity. What “messed” things up so beautifully!?

Turns out that about 75% of these 180 boys had had a certain teacher.

So the researchers looked up the teacher, found her in a nursing home. When asked if she could think of what she might have done that would have so influenced these boys that they had avoided prison, she replied, “No . . . I really couldn’t say . . . ”

She looked off into the distance, and then–more to herself than to the researchers–she said under her breath:

“I sure loved those boys.”

Doc Meek, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 (2nd posting, evening)

At Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA

See full size image; Image may be subject to copyright. Image at: www.zeeburgnieuws.nl/nieuws/mb_un_sep_2007.htm

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I previously posted two blog entries in a row (Sunday, June 13, 2010, and Monday, June 14, 2010), both proposing that we cannot change the world, that we can only change ourselves.

Wait though!

In the second post, the Unknown Monk held out hope that if we change ourselves first [for the better], then we indeed may be able to change our families, our communities, our nation, and our world. 😮

Especially if we unite with like-minded people who are also willing to change themselves for the better,  in order to be able to help others change for the better. 😮

Carpe diem! [Seize the day!]

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.” This was John Keating, speaking to a group of young men who were studying inspiring poems written by now-dead poets:

“[These dead poets are] not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – – Carpe – – hear it? – – Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating

Pick your path: Be intelligent and wise

You can “seize the day” in at least two distinct ways of which I am aware. Two distinct pathways of life:

(1) You can be violent and destructive and tear things down, both the bad and the good.

(2) You can be relentless and creative in building something new and worthwhile.

Will you find obstacles to your goals on both paths. You bet!

If you do nothing, or very little, or work quietly “out of the limelight,” you will still encounter obstacles.

“Even oysters have enemies.”  – Jack Nicholson

Carpe diem!

Doc Meek, Tuesday, June 15, 2010 (1st posting, morning)

At Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA

No point in “saving the world” if I lose my own . . .

Photo from: “Sunshine Kids” (TM) [copy and paste the following website address into your web browser]: http://www.skjp.com/country_selector.php

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Sunday . . . A sunshine day? Maybe a family day? Maybe a day of rest? Maybe a spiritual retreat from the work-a-day world?

On Sundays, I try to DSD.

DSD? Do Something Different . . .

Do Something Different that will enhance my life long-term and hopefully . . .  enhance the lives of others long-term. Even if “others” is one person. Even if that one person is a member of my own family.

After all, there is no point in “saving the world” if I lose my own . . . right?

Changing the world

I remember a short story from long ago. I don’t know who created it. It goes something like this (rough paraphrase):

I tried to change the world; they didn’t want to change.

I tried to change my country; no one would listen to me.

I tried to change my city; they were all too busy to change.

I tried to change the town I moved to; they were involved in their own affairs.

I tried to change my family; they were committed to their own life pathways.

I tried to change myself.

This was not easy.

It was all I could do . . . really.

And that has made all the difference.* 😮

Where have I heard that before?

*This last line sounds remarkably like the last line of the poem entitled, “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood,” by Robert Frost. I’ll check this out. Did it. That last line is exactly like the last line of Robert Frost’s poem, actually entitled “The Road Not Taken” The title I just gave is the first line of Frost’s poem. Photo below from “China Daily” website, which includes the full poem by Robert Frost; URL: www.chinadaily.com.cn/…/content_619076_2.htm

The Poet Robert Frost Reminds me of my son Robert

My son Robert is one of the great men in my life. He wrote poetry in his youth and did take the path less traveled by.

Love, Blessings and Friendship, Doc Meek, Sunday, June 13, 2010

At Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA; not at South Jordan, Utah, USA

P.S. DSD today? [Do Something Different today?]

Read or write a poem? Take a path less traveled by?

And also do something familiar, for continuity. 😮