Interesting comic strip comparing Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden approach to education spending priorities and reasoning to our apparent priorities.
I couldn’t figure out how to embed or copy the actual comic image, so you’ll have to go to Silhouette Man to see and enjoy this one,
This video produced by The Ounce of Prevention Fund does an excellent job of portraying what is possible to accomplish at the preventative stage across a community like ours.
It’s a real invitation to acknowledge both problem and solution and step up to action.
This is from the Chatham-Savannah Youth Futures Authority – Georgia Family Collection Collaborative website.
Here’s a quick summary of the article. This won’t be surprising if you’ve been reading on the subject, but it is a worthwhile reminder.
Read the full article here.
It’s summer and time for a little fun with what you can stumble upon on the web.
What’s the point of being insanely musically gifted if you don’t have a little fun with your talents? Music producers Andrew Huang and Dave Brown collaborated to create a songencompassing 26 genres in alphabetical order.
The song spans from ambient to zouk, stopping along the way to feature grunge, K-pop, and reggae. Despite the rapid changes in instruments and lyrics, a chord progression links each genre’s 10-second clip together. A label in the lower right-hand corner of the screen indicates which genre you’re currently listening to, making the video a cool, compact musical education.
Happy July ~
A recent Associated Press article by Paul Wiseman says that top employers want college graduates with skills that don’t show up on school transcripts. I am hearing the same thing from local small and medium businesses about high school and community college graduates. So it’s across the board national and local.
Good potential employees have acquired the necessary knowledge and/or technical skills; exceptional potential employees also have ‘soft skills.’
So, just what are these ‘soft skills?’
And that’s the disconnect between what can be taught in a classroom and tested for to show progress for students, teachers, principles, school systems to state agencies and legislators – and what can’t be easily classroom taught or tested that employers are looking and needing to hire.
Solution: above my pay grade, but I can see and appreciate the problem.
“It’ll never last…”
“Someone with her background will never make a go of this…”
“Are you kidding me?” “Pathetic! Delusional!”
“Social media is a fad, the iPad is a toy, you’re never going to amount to anything…”
Here’s the thing about proving skeptics wrong: They don’t care. They won’t learn. They will stay skeptics. The ones who said the airplane would never fly ignored the success of the Wright Bros. and went on to become skeptical of something else. And when they got onto an airplane, they didn’t apologize to the engineers on their way in.
I used to have a list, and I kept it in my head, the list of people who rejected, who were skeptical, who stood in the way. What I discovered was that this wasn’t the point of the work, and my goal wasn’t actually to prove these folks wrong, it was only to do the work that was worth doing. So long ago I stopped keeping track. It’s not about the skeptics. It’s about the people who care about, support and enable.
Instead of working so hard to prove the skeptics wrong, it makes a lot more sense to delight the true believers. They deserve it, after all, and they’re the ones that are going to spread the word for you.
Posted by Seth Godin on July 10, 2013
What’s the best predictor of success in a person’s life?
Dr. Angela Duckworth says it’s “Grit” in this June 2013 video/TED Talk,
You should watch it.