Books that Matter to Me: "The Element"

Sir Ken Robinson's book: "The Element" is a book about finding your passion in life.

Don't be put off by the title, that sounds more like the discovery of some mystical chemistry compound, than the lyrical series of stories it tells about people - ordinary people who discover within themselves, extraordinary talents and gifts.

Sir Ken Robinson is a life force to be reckoned with - he has all the educational credentials (been there - a Professor in England's most prestigious universities, and done that), and is an internationally recognised leader in creativity, innovation, education and human capacity. He was knighted in 2003 for his contribution to education and the arts and in 2008 received the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts, awarded to a global 'big thinker' who has energised public discourse about human progress. One of the best short clips you are ever likely to see on creativity is on youtube, from his TED lecture on creativity: http://www.ted.com/ or just google Ken Robinson.

Back to the book though ...... Robinson tells us story after story of people, who for all intents and purposes, were a little different from their families, their peers and for want of a better term, the 'norm'. Robinson contends, that all of us have unique gifts and talents; sometimes these gifts have been stymied by 'industrialised education' - we have had the creative juices sucked dry by old fashioned methods and attitudes to education. (my words...) Sadly for us educationalists, Robinson is somewhat disparaging of what we do to children through the educative process. (I should reassure readers, that this is not the case at my school!) He points out that some of the most brilliant, creative people he knows did not do well at school and most of them did not find out, who they really were 'until they had left school and recovered from their education.' A sad indictment indeed!

He tells the story of how Gillian Lynne's mother (and successive teachers) worried that she could not sit still at school and stay focused. As a last resort, her mother took her to a psychiatrist who told her, "You know, Mrs Lynne, Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer. Take her to a dance school." Gillian Lynne went onto dance for the Royal Ballet School in London, and became a highly successful choreographer with Andrew Lloyd Webber, including 'Cats' and 'The Phantom of the Opera'.

Robinson tells story after story of people rejected initially for the one thing that they were to become famous for in the future: Paul McCartney was rejected by the choir of Liverpool Cathedral, John Cleese went through school and university where no teacher recognised he had a sense of humour. Creativity is like intelligence, we all have it, but sometimes we doubt our own abilities to the point where we no longer see or believe in our own intelligence and creativity. As Robinson points out: "when people say they're not creative, it's often because they don't know what's involved or how creativity works in practice."

Robinson claims that you can be creative at anything - not just in the arts, design or advertising, but also in science, maths, engineering, business, athletics - just about everything. It's all about recognising the 'unique powers of imagination'.

Key messages from Robinson's book for me:

• We can all be imaginative, if we step back and release our minds from the immediate here and now - we can hypothesise, speculate, suppose and conjecture. We can all do this!


• We sometimes need to find 'our tribe' - people with like interests and passions - they can be collaborators or competitors. What connects a tribe is a common commitment to the thing they feel they were born to do.


• Creativity is a step beyond imagination because it requires you to do something rather than lie around thinking about it.


• At some point, to achieve, we need to be 'in the zone'. Doing what we love does not necessarily mean that we will be 'in the zone', sometimes we have to develop our own ritual to get the creative juices flowing and these rituals, don't always work!


• You sometimes have to overcome extraordinary barriers to find your 'passion'; sometimes there are 'circles of constraint' - personal ones, social ones and cultural ones.... but don't give up on your dream! Overcoming our own demons and thinking, is the toughest battle.

• The Element is about transforming your life - a roadmap if you like - encouraging stories of how other ordinary folk have changed their lives by following their passion.


• Finally, it's never too late! Be inspired! Be committed! Follow through!

• FOLLOW YOUR PASSION!
  

Maybe reading books is not your thing, but this is one book everyone should read. If you want to be inspired, with a healthy helping of humour, with strategies to meet the challenge of inertia or self doubt; if you want to find your real passion or 'your element', then this is the book for you.

Or for the 'time poor' or those of you lacking motivation, try watching the youtube clip on my blog site. It's like the 'reader's digest' version of the full story.... maybe enough to tempt you to discover your own passion, or if you have discovered your own passion, to follow that dream and do something about it!

Good Luck!

Be True to Yourself

Be yourself - Truthfully

Accept yourself - Gracefully

Value yourself -Joyfully

Forgive yourself - Completely

Treat yourself - Generously

Balance yourself - Harmoniously

Bless yourself - Abundantly

Trust yourself - Confidently

Love yourself - Wholeheartedly

Empower yourself - Prayerfully

Give yourself - Enthusiastically

Express yourself - Radiantly

Above all, be gentle on yourself. No one is perfect and some days you will rather forget, but there are lots of days and lots of moments that we can rejoice in and be happy about.

Don't lose sight of the big picture in life. What's important right this minute may not be important in the long term - in a week's time or a year's time. Keep life in perspective. Enjoy life!

Be true to yourself.

The Times, They Are a Changing

Nothing stays the same. Time marches on whether we like it or not. Remember the dinosaurs that dominated the earth millions of years ago? These gigantic creatures reigned supreme for millions of years – 200 million to be precise, from the Triassic period 240 million years ago until their cataclysmic demise in the late Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Many theories abound on the fall of the dinosaurs, but as a species they survived for so long, and yet it is a stunning reality, that within a very short period of time, they all disappeared. Why?

During a similar time period, and even older, are the ancient ancestors of the common cockroach – the Archimylacris eggintoni , which has survived and evolved over 300 million years. This insect scuttled around forest floors during the Carboniferous period 359 - 299 million years ago, which is sometimes referred to as the age of the cockroach because fossils of Archimylacris eggintoni and its relatives are amongst the most common insects from this time period. They are found all over the world.

Yes I realise that this is not everyone’s favourite topic, but it’s amazing that this pesky creature has survived for so long – many scientists would argue (and some people joke) that if there was a nuclear explosion, the cockroach would be one of the rare survivors. Why?

The history pages are full of the rise and fall of great cultures and great cities and even great countries and empires. Think about the classic rise and fall of the Roman Empire from 201BC until AD476. Ancient history is a lesson in life – never ending phases of growth, successful adaptation, cultural or anthropological peaks, population explosion, excess, decline and extinction. It begs the question:”Why?”
What we know is that nothing stays the same and those things that do stay the same, simply don’t survive. Anything that fails to adapt and change to new circumstances is doomed to oblivion. As famous politician and statesmen, Harold Wilson once said:
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."

I could be facetious and say that education is one of the few industrial age survivors; some schools never seem to change – they’re like islands where the drawbridge comes down at the start of the day, students enter and the drawbridge goes down again at the end of the day and the students go home to the ‘real world’. Any semblance to preparation for the real world is purely coincidental and accidental.

Caloundra City Private School is not one of these schools. Technologically, the School has led and will continue to lead the way in educational innovation on the Sunshine Coast and in Queensland. The introduction of the Apple iPad is in keeping with the latest developments in digital evolution and points to the future direction of digital education with internet based applications on mobile devices. While the introduction of the Apple iPad coincides with the launch of the new School name, it is in itself, a trial of the new technology.

Unlike the dinosaurs that failed to adapt to the new conditions, the School is embracing the new and evolving direction in technology. The one area that has grown astronomically in recent years has been in the area of internet based applications on mobile devices. Apple leads the way in educational applications (Apps) and the introduction of iPads to Years 10, 11 and 12 as well as in the Junior School, will allow the school to more fully explore the best way forward for students and teachers. In life, it is those who change most successfully with the changing times that are the real winners. As was once said of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire :
“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

The new School name has been one of evolution rather than revolution and the Board has taken into account a number of factors in deciding on the new name. Because the School’s name is already well known on the Sunshine Coast and has developed its own distinctive ‘branding’, it was obvious that this would be lost if there was a wholesale change to the name. Coupled with the fact that the real issue with the previous name was that no one was really sure about the School’s status, the Board decided that the best course of action was a simple but effective change to the name of the School by adding the word ‘private’. No one is any doubt now, that the School is an independent, private school. Yes a good outcome, because the change will not require any immediate changes to be made from a parents’ perspective and the transition to new badge and logo will be gradual, as uniform items need to be replaced.

Technology, on the other hand, leaps forward at a breakneck pace without any sight of relenting. If anything, technology seems to be growing and re-inventing itself at an exponential pace. The bottom line is that technology, like most things in life, is evolving and it is because of this rapid evolution, that Caloundra City Private School will not be relegated to the history pages, like the dinosaurs or the litany of old world schools and cultures, but will continually seek to be at the forefront of technological innovation. We are preparing our students for a world very different from ours. As Yogi Berra said: “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

iPads coming to Caloundra City Private School

Press Release:

Mr Roy Henzell, Chairman of the Board of the Caloundra City School, announced today that the name of the school was to be changed to the “Caloundra City Private School”. In making this decision, the Board considered that the name change was necessary, given the amount of uncertainty in the wider community about the status of CCS, with many people not realising that CCS was a private, independent school. To avoid this confusion, the Board has decided to add the word “Private” to the school’s name. The Board felt that the new name would more properly reflect the vibrant and exciting nature of this school, located at Pelican Waters on the Sunshine Coast.

The first Year 12 students to graduate from the school this year, will graduate as students of the “Caloundra City Private School”.

“There would be minimum financial impact on existing students and parents as a result of the change of name, there being no immediate change to badges. There will be a transition period of a couple of years before any uniform changes become necessary”, Mr Henzell said.

“To celebrate the name change, the Board has also decided that in 2011, every student in Years 10, 11 and 12, will be given, free of charge, an Apple iPad, while they remain enrolled at the School. Caloundra City Private School will be the very first school in Australia and maybe the world to offer such an amazing educational experience to its Senior students.

“This will add yet another dimension to the students’ learning at School and at home. Rather than hide from new technology at CCPS, we will continue to embrace the opportunities that are afforded by new directions in technology. Even our Prep Year level will have a class set of iPads to use at School in 2011”, the School’s Principal, Mrs Karon Graham said.

“Caloundra City Private School has led and will continue to lead the way in technology on the Sunshine Coast and in Queensland. The introduction of the iPad is in keeping with the latest developments in digital evolution and points to the future direction of digital education with internet based applications on mobile devices”, said Mrs Graham.

Any parents interested in hearing more about this innovative school should contact the School’s Administration to organise a tour of the School and meeting with the Principal.

Say 'NO' to Underage Drinking!

“Thank goodness my child doesn’t do drugs,” you say with a sigh of relief. It scares me to say this, but many parents believe, rather misguidedly, that if their teenage son or daughter drinks alcohol, then they are not ‘doing drugs’. Many parents don’t actually appreciate that alcohol is a drug, nor do they understand some of the very real dangers of underage drinking.

“It is a shocking and worrying statistic that one teenager between the ages of 14 and 17 dies each week as a result of alcohol abuse. Many more are hospitalised. Binge drinking can lead to violence, high risk sexual activity, depression and in some instances, brain damage and alcohol dependence” according to Dr Christine Bennett, Chief Medical Officer, MBF, Australia.

Research reveals that binge drinking has reached epidemic levels in Australia as alcohol consumption has now become the biggest single social issue for teens facing our country. Professor Margaret Hamilton from the National Drug and Alcohol Council reports that binge drinking is a term given to the dangerous practice of consuming large quantities of alcoholic beverages (more than five standard drinks) in a single session. Binge drinking is an Australian phenomenon and contrary to popular belief is a greater problem in Australia than in any other country. It’s as if Australians see this as some kind of ’rite of passage’ and accept teenage drinking as inevitable. There’s a worrying complacency in this attitude that must be addressed by all families.

Here’s some of the cold hard facts about teenagers drinking in Australia:

• By age 18, more than 70% of teenagers have had a least one drink (MBF)
• 25% of those aged 14-19years drank alcohol on a daily or weekly basis in the last 12 months (ABS: Alcohol Consumption in Australia 2004-05 Report)
• Over 80% of all the alcohol consumed by 14-17 year olds is drunk at risky/high risk levels for acute harm (National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University)
• 1 in 10 teenagers binge drink
• More teens drink alcohol than smoke or use drugs (MBF Report)
• Alcohol kills more teenagers than deaths from all illicit drugs combined
• Over 3000 Australians die each year as a result of harmful drinking (ABS)
• Over 3000 14-17 year olds were hospitalised for alcohol-attributable injury and disease 1999-00 (NDRI)
• 28.5% of high school students nationwide rode in a car driven by someone who had been drinking - one or more times in the 30 days prior to the NSDU survey
• 51% of alcohol consumed is drunk at levels that pose a risk of short-term harm (ABS)

What do we know about the development of the teenage brain?

We don’t know everything but we do know that drinking during the adolescent years interrupts brain development. (Dr Susan Tapert, University of California) and in particular:
• Alcohol is a toxin and disrupts this crucial window of development.
• Alcohol can lead to problems such as learning difficulties, cognitive deficits, memory impairment and emotional problems like depression and anxiety.
• Teenage drinking is dangerous. Alcohol inhibits teenager’s ability to think through consequences of their actions causing them to take silly risks like getting into fights, drink driving, unwanted sex and serious accidents.

The best advice that doctors and experts in the field of adolescent development suggest is that parents delay teenage drinking for as long as possible, at least until 18 years old. Don’t give alcohol at home to underage teenagers and don’t buy alcohol for your teenager, in some misguided hope that they won’t take drugs.

What does the research tell us?

Research shows that children are less likely to drink when parents are involved in their lives and when they and their parents report feeling close to one another. It also tells us that teens who begin drinking by age 15 are five times more likely to become dependent on alcohol than those who start at 21. The chances of becoming dependent decrease by 14% for each year the introduction of alcohol is delayed. (drinkwise.com.au)

Tips for Parents: Delay, delay, delay!

• Drink responsibly yourself and don’t glorify drinking and intoxication. Be a good role model and be consistent in your attitude and behaviour in relation to drinking alcohol. Explain the importance of ‘drinking responsibly’ to your child.

• The more you talk to your son or daughter about alcohol before they are of an age to drink alcohol, the less likely they are to drink to excess. It’s important to talk to young people about enjoying life without relying on stimulants such as alcohol – after all it’s addictive - the brain becomes accustomed to the stimulus and requires more and more to be satisfied.

• Talk to your son or daughter’s friends’ parents about drinking alcohol and get a consensus about not allowing underage drinking.

• Talk to your child about peer pressure and drinking alcohol. The more strategies young people have before the ‘peer pressure’ the more prepared they will be to handle the situation.

• Use this newsletter as an opportunity to talk to your (pre) teenage son or daughter about drinking alcohol. It's very important that families share a meal together at the dining room table each night. Don’t underestimate the power of this simple practice to reinforce good messages to your children and research shows that it also reduces the risk of young people using drugs.

Research shows that the partnership between parents and the school is one of the best protective factors for young people; working together we can help mould our young people into fine, upstanding and responsible adults. Trust me, it’s definitely worth the effort!

Prayer for Busy Times

A dear friend recently sent me this prayer, which I thought I would share with all of my busy friends..... hope you enjoy it as much as I did and don't cringe too much if you see yourself in some of these situations ...... no one's perfect ! Well, then again ...... :)

Prayer for Busy Times
(and for those who are just a little too controlling...)

Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 5:45 am
God help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.
God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually NOT my fault.
God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, please feel free to ASK me!
Lord, help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it EXACTLY right.
God help me to take things more seriously, especially laughter, parties, and dancing.
God give me patience, and I mean right NOW!
Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)
God, help me to finish everything I sta
God, help me to keep my mind on one th — Look, a bird — ing at a time.
God help me to do only what I can, and trust you for the rest. And would you mind putting that in writing?
Lord keep me open to others’ ideas, WRONG though they may be.
Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.
Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.
Lord, help me slow down andnotrushthroughwhatIdo.

Amen.

Facebook: Friend or Foe?

There’s no getting around it, Facebook is here to stay. Facebook has become the greatest phenomenon of our time, following hot on the heels of the invention of the Internet and the answer to all our questions: Google. In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and three others launched the site from Harvard University, as a way for university friends to stay in touch with one another. Since this time, Facebook has grown at such an unbelievable pace that six years later, a staggering 500 million people worldwide now have Facebook accounts. According to a recent Time Magazine article (May 31, 2010) more than one in four people who browse the Internet, have a Facebook account and return to the site frequently. Facebook dominates the social networking scene, and leaves in its wake, other social networks such as MySpace, Twitter and Linkedlin.

In the USA and Canada, over 40 percent of the population has a Facebook account and Australia is not far behind with over 30 percent of Australians with Facebook accounts. For many people, Facebook has become a ‘second home’. According to Time reporter, Dan Fletcher, Facebook users share more than 25 billion pieces of information with Facebook each month and 1 billion unique and very personal images are added each week! With over 48 billion unique images, Facebook holds the world’s largest photo collection, which is for all intents and purposes, shared with millions of others. Yes you can untag your name, if you find an unflattering image of yourself that someone else has posted on Facebook, but there’s not much more you can do to remove it.

Social networking has taken on a ‘life’ of its own. Gone are the days of face to face meetings with friends, now, it mostly happens, rather ironically in a ‘faceless to faceless’ world called Facebook. Some critics would go as far as saying that Facebook is not really a social networking site as much as it is an ‘anti-social’ network. ‘Isn’t it ironic…..don’t you think’, sings Alanis Morisette and she could very well be singing about Facebook, because it’s the one place where you can have hundreds of “friends”, who aren’t really friends at all. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Facebook is a wonderful way to stay in touch with real friends, far-flung friends and family but equally, it poses a potpourri of potential problems.

So what are some of the problems and pitfalls that come from using Facebook and what can you do as a parent? The list is long but here are some of the major concerns and more importantly what parents can do to better educate their teenagers about Facebook. As a parent, I know there’s a natural inclination to want to ban the use of Facebook, for all of its problems and issues, but seriously it’s not the answer. Like most things in life, young people have to learn for themselves, sometimes through trial and error, with lots of guidance from caring parents, the most effective way to use this form of communication.

I would like to stress at this point, that like all forms of communication, social network sites are not dissimilar to other written forms of communication such as email, text messaging, tweets and the like, in that, there are polite and socially acceptable forms of communicating and there are rude, anti-social, disrespectful, illegal and defamatory forms of communication too. It’s important that parents discuss basic social etiquette of written communication and encourage young people to reflect beforehand rather than regret afterwards, what can’t be undone.

Teenagers can be very impulsive and write comments that can be hurtful, upsetting and in some extreme cases, bullying or defamatory. Recent tragic events of youth suicides have stemmed from postings on social network sites and the consequences of unthinking, thoughtless comments or photos or video can be devastating to individuals and their families and friends. Young people need to learn the basic skills of social responsibility and the possible consequences of irresponsible behaviour and actions.

Teenagers should take great care to not share too much personal information in their ‘public profile’. Anyone who uses Facebook is leaving a digital ‘footprint’ that can live forever on Facebook. Once something has been posted on the site, it’s out of their control and can be copied, pasted and forwarded to others. So called ‘friends’ can suddenly become their worst enemies.

Parents should set rules about what should and should not be posted on Facebook; no one wants to have something like a compromising photo or comment to come back to haunt them, months or even years later. Similarly, it would be wise to talk to your son and daughter about ‘time limits’ and insist that they keep within these set limits. Facebook can be addictive and many young people will spend in excess of four hours a day on Facebook. Do the maths; this is far too much time being spent on questionable ‘conversations’ that could be better spent in the real world on more productive activities.

Young people should be made aware that it’s not just their ‘friends’ who go onto Facebook to see what’s going on in their world. Unfortunately there have been hundreds and probably thousands of people around the world who have lost their jobs because of careless, rude, crude and derogatory comments made about co-workers, bosses and the organisation with whom they work or photos and comments which compromise the character of the employee. Employers will often search the profiles of prospective employees to establish whether they are the sort of person that they would be happy to employ. Parents would be wise to discuss this possibility with their teenager.

Your name and photo are always publicly viewable, and even though it’s possible to limit who sees all of your personal information, Facebook has a bad habit of changing its privacy settings. This means that the onus is on the Facebook users to reset their privacy settings. Parents should sit down with their teenager and go through the privacy settings on their Facebook account to ensure that the strictest privacy settings are in place. Unfortunately, even with these privacy settings, it’s possible to ‘hack into’ someone else’s Facebook account, so for this reason alone, young people should be circumspect about what they post on their site. Facebook continues to find ways to share individual person’s details with commercial third parties. It’s no accident that more and more ads appear as you use Facebook.

‘Time out’ or closing the Facebook account can be a last resort measure to better educate your son or daughter or to protect them. Blocking people, who have not done the right thing, of have shown themselves to be untrustworthy might be an effective way to minimise potential problems and avert a ‘war of words’ which seems to be part of the norm of ‘soap opera dramas’ that unfold in the world of teenage life.

Remember that young people need guidance and advice. Never assume that they can sort out all of their own problems. At CCS we take the matter of educating each child on appropriate social etiquette in the real world as well as in that other world of the social networking very seriously. Much of what happens on Facebook, happens in the privacy of your own home, but I have noticed increasingly with the use of sophisticated, web enabled mobile phones, that students are accessing Facebook at all times of the day. This is one area where the School and all families should work in concert to better educate our young people.

The fact is that people like to share, how else can you explain the phenomenal growth of Facebook? What our young people need to realise and understand though is that there’s a difference between sharing with ‘real friends and family’ and sharing personal information, photos and stories that will be used and abused by others. Always err on the side of caution and remember: everything in moderation, with a good dose of common sense, a healthy social responsibility and respect for self and others and the pitfalls and perils of Facebook may be averted or at the very least minimised.

Whether Facebook is friend or foe, largely depends on how people use Facebook. In the end, it boils down to who uses it and what the purpose of using Facebook is. Staying in touch with real friends and family members is a great use of Facebook, which can bring much joy and delight but like most of life there is a polar opposite - a dark side if you like - not just to Facebook but to all forms of communication. Used wisely, Facebook is a real friend, used unwisely, Facebook is your worst nightmare! Ultimately, you decide.