Thursday, May 30, 2013

As A New Generation Steps Forth - 5 Suggested Things YOU Should Consider -


As A New Generation Steps Forth
- 5 Suggested Things YOU Should Consider -


Blink  . . .  and ten years pass by.  It’s now 2023.  A brand new generation is taking the reins.  The world has continued to shrink and is much, much smaller.  Technology has continued an unabated, unchecked progression; what is now futuristic has become commonplace.  Complexity is the daily norm, and change the only constant.  Opportunities, problems and grand challenges abound.
Will this be a new generation of innovators?  Will they be strong, resilient problem solvers, or servants of the status quo?  
The answer has everything to do with their concept of learning . . . or how learning is adapted to the realities and wonderful opportunities of the not-too-distant future.
What do educators, mentors, and life coaches need to provide for the next generation of positive, innovative leaders?  
If core competencies are assumed what will be the key elements of an education that might help students become life-long learners, successful in multiple, varied career paths?
Henry Doss is a venture capitalist, student, musician and volunteer in higher education.  Suggest's five critical elements that every student should be looking for in an educational journey . . . and educators should be looking to deliver.
(Short Bio: Henry Doss - His firm, T2VC, builds startups and the ecosystems that grow them.  His university, UNC Charlotte, is a leading research institution.)
1:         Language:   We live in language and we create with language.  Innovation and creativity, solving big problems, leveraging opportunities – all of these demand highly developed language skills.   It is language that brings ideas to life, that inspires, and that creates narrative continuity in organizations.  Without powerful language skills, leaders struggle to gather resources, to bring clarity to action and to lead the kinds of conversations that cause innovative action.   Language, eloquence even, is something that goes well beyond “writing intensive” classes and the odd English class or two.  The resilient, creative leader is one who has immersed herself in words, who is comfortable with complex language and who has an abiding sense of the power of narrative.
The business leader causes action with words not threats; the engineer communicates ideas and concepts and invention with words; the nano-biologist must write something, sooner or later.  It is not enough to be competent in a core discipline, if you aspire to innovation and leadership.  Eloquence of language, clarity, erudition . . . all of these matter to those who aspire to lead.
2:         Leadership:    As a discipline, a thing to be practiced and learned, leadership is a woefully low priority in education.   Innovation, problem-solving and invention are much more about failure than they are about the occasional success.  The concept of “successful failure” is critical to developing leaders and something educators should teach at every possible point in the course of a student’s education.   Students should be given multiple opportunities to experience the thrill  — and certain failure  — of leading.  Of being accountable.  Of taking charge.  Our educational culture tends to be success-focused, and rewards “high achievement.”   But leadership requires putting yourself on the line, consistently taking risks, and without exception, sooner or later . . . failing.  Without this element of leadership learning and personal growth, the educational experience is flat, unrealistic and uninspiring.
3:         Authenticity:   Learning about yourself is perhaps the single most important outcome of a powerful educational experience.  Self-awareness can lead to an ever-increasing authenticity, which in turn leads to powerful leadership abilities.  Authenticity is not about “accept me for what I am”; authentic leaders are self aware, willing to adapt and change and “be who they are in service to others.” Education should be a powerful process of increasing self awareness, of coming to know yourself and of learning the intrinsic value of who you are as a human being. . . and then understanding the need for constant change, personal growth and learning for the rest of  your life.
4:         Breadth:   There is an old saying:  “specialization is for insects.”  In our zeal to certify, to create “experts” and to organize learning around “disciplines” (rather than around, say, learning) our system of education forces students to “major” in something.  Although this works reasonably well in service to core professional competencies, this arbitrary structure does little to encourage breadth of education.  We often speak in awe of the “Renaissance” person, as if this were an ideal.  But we do little to encourage a “Renaissance education.”
English: Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. R...
Leonardo da Vinci  A Renaissance Thinker
Future leaders and innovators should seek out, and schools should encourage and support, a broad — a very broad — educational experience.   Acquiring a “Renaissance education” is nearly impossible in a system that encourages – actually, requires – students to say “I am this, but not that” at a very young age, and at a very early stage in their education.   Innovators, leaders, change-agents – the folks in the world who cause things to be different – are rarely this or that; they are more often this and that. One of the great challenges for students and our schools is to evolve beyond the narrow confines of “disciplines” and embrace the chaos and uncertainty of a rapidly changing world, bearing in mind that the “discipline” of today is the forgotten history of the future.
5:         Resilience:    It is a cliché nowadays, but true nevertheless (and has likely been true for as long as human beings have aspired to anything):  Everyone will have multiple jobs, careers and life experiences and rarely will any one way of thinking or one path to career preparation have a very long shelf life.
Circumstances change and change rapidly, and the career students think they are preparing for today will simply disappear in ten years.  Students need an education that will leave them resilient and  prepared to turn on a dime.  To the extent we teach as if things were permanent, and curricula are created as if there are predictable paths to careers, we are basically teaching students to bestatus-quo oriented.  And they will find little supply of status quo in the future.  Academic dogma is anathema to creativity, flexibility and resilience, and students should be encouraged to challenge, to inquire, to develop powerful points of view of their own.
Educating students to become innovative leaders is not yet a science, and is inherently a messy enterprise.  It is not likely to occur in the safe, predictable, ordered and linear world we tend to put students in.  In a sense all of this can be summarized as the need to teach students to dare, to experiment and to fail with joy.  Perhaps John Stuart Mill said everything that needed to be said about innovation and leadership in this short sentence:  “That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time.”


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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Dreaming or Reality. -An Inspirational Short Story

Dreaming or Reality. -An Inspirational Short Story


Today, as I was sleeping, I woke up to my daughter calling my name.  

I was sleeping in a sofa chair in her hospital room.  

I opened my eyes to her beautiful smile.  My daughter has been in a coma for 98 days.  -Anonymous


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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Seeing For Others. -An Inspirational Short Story


Seeing For Others. -An Inspirational Short Story


Today, when I went to pick-up my daughter from preschool she was sitting on the ground in the corner of the after-care area with 3 blind students.  All of them had smiles on their faces.  The after-care instructor told me my daughter has been spending time with these 3 students every afternoon this week, answering questions and explaining to them in vivid detail what different objects, people and animals look like. -Anonymous


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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

A Poem & Prayer For The Oklahoma Tornado Victims

A Poem & Prayer For The Oklahoma Tornado Victims



My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the Oklahoma tornado yesterday. According to the Washington Post the tornado, touched down at 2:56 p.m. yesterday outside Oklahoma City, left massive destruction in its wake and took the lives of at least 24 people.
The level of devastation caused by yesterday’s storm, had 166 mile per hour (mph) to 200 mph winds. Oklahoma itself is also no stranger to these storms. 
For the Oklahoma tornado victims here's a poem & prayer: 
The Tornado
By Irene Latham

The story comes grumbling
over the hill. It tumbles
hailstones and cracks tree-trunks.
It craves front-page news,
so it musters all speed
and muscle. It tears across
Main Street, steals shingles
and un-parks cars.

It whirls, whistles
screams and teems with twists
no one sees coming.
We huddle, hunch

brace ourselves for the end.
When sunshine arrives,
we unfold, emerge.
Our words echo

and soothe as we join
hands with our neighbors.
Together
we sift through rubble

to shape a new story.
It rises like hallelujah!
as a goldfinch gathers
thistle to rebuild its nest.



A Prayer from Psalm 46
God Is Our Refuge
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.

God we cry out to You in this time of devastation. In times where You seem absent and I ask, Why.....
Why, have you allowed this storm?

Where were you in the midst of the cries for help?

.... ..... the storm rolled on..... ..... 

Now please rise up compassion and action within our hearts.  Please unifty those in Oklahoma.  Comfort them. Help them rebuild.

....Amen.




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Monday, May 20, 2013

Investments. -An Inspirational Short Story


Investments. -An Inspirational Short Story

Today, I found out that my mom and dad have been working second jobs at night so they can continue to financially assist my twin sister and I who are both sophomores in college.  My dad said, “You two will be the first in our family’s history to receive college diplomas.  Two jobs is nothing!  I’d work three if I had to to see you two graduate.”  -Anonymous


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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pain, Clay, & Pleasure. A Short Inspirational Story by Leah Drinen


Pain, Clay, & Pleasure.  A Short Inspirational Story by Leah Drinen

There has always been so much of me and i developed the habit of cutting myself down to size. 

So at thirty, i began to feel the pain. Me became a priority fast. With lots of healing and self-soothing to do, i set out on that epic journey everyone must take. Where was she? Who am I? When and where have i ever seen the true and natural me?...unbridled, unashamed, and unchristian? 

I found that i am a creature...a created thing with propensity, intuition, and a forceful energy, all by design. My life became messy and somewhere in this mess i found clay. 





In order to cope with emense pain, i gave

 myself the pleasure of creating 

everyday. 





I began to feed the parts of me that had been living on whatever they could get from an occasional breeze or rainshower...and then I became Myself. It was a grand occasion!..and I celebrate it everyday!

Click on the following link to view her work.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/RaineorShinePottery



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Thursday, May 9, 2013

Hard Decisions. -An Inspirational Short Story


Hard Decisions. -An Inspirational Short Story


Today, at 8AM this morning, after four months of lifelessness in her hospital bed, we took my mom off life support.  And her heart continued beating on its own.  And she continued breathing on her own.  Then this evening, when I squeezed her hand three times, she squeezed back three times.  -Anonymous


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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A Feeling & Time of Need. -An Inspirational Short Story


A Feeling & Time of Need. -An Inspirational Short Story


Today, when I opened my store at 5AM there was an envelope sitting on the floor by the door.  In the envelope was $600 and a note that said, “Five years ago, I broke into your store at night and stole $300 worth of food.  I’m sorry.  I was desperate.  Here’s the money with 100% interest.”  Interestingly, I never reported the incident to the cops because I assumed that whoever stole the food really needed it.  -Anonymous


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Thursday, May 2, 2013

All Actions Have Reactions. -An Inspirational Short Story


All Actions Have Reactions. -An Inspirational Short Story


Today is the 14th day in a row that my nursing home patient’s grandson has come to visit her.  Two weeks ago I told him that the only time I see his grandmother smile all week is when he visits her on Sunday mornings.  -Anonymous


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