Book Review: Outliers, The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers, The Story of Success, is a great read by Malcolm Gladwell.  Gladwell takes a look at successful people and asks the questions of why.  One of my favorite chapters is number 2, “10,000 Hours “In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours.”  In this chapter Gladwell gives example after example of the overnight…

Read More

Not So Usual Celebrations

August 19th is Aviation Day.  Up, Up, and Away!  If you’ve been following the “Not So Usual Celebrations”, you may have discovered that it is difficult to tell a “sanctioned” holiday from an “unsanctioned” holiday.  Official holiday must been created by an Act of Congress, so you may wonder—which are real and which are not. …

Read More

Developing Capable Young People—The Skills Needed—The Work of Stephen Glenn

Taking a look at the second part of Glenn’s work, he identifies four skills that youth need to acquire to be successful in life.  He identifies these as intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, system skills, and judgment skills.  The importance of developing intrapersonal skill—liking and respecting yourself and having the ability to strengthen positive self-control and…

Read More

Not So Usual Celebrations…

August 18th is Bad Poetry Day.  The thing of it is, what some people consider bad poetry, others may think is meaningful and to the point.  That is why poetry can touch your soul, or turn you off.  It tries to capture the essence of what the author is experiencing into words which seldom capture…

Read More

Developing Capable Young People—The Work of Stephen Glenn

It’s been over ten years ago that I had the opportunity to participate in a life-changing workshop entitled Developing Capable Young People. [1]  I read the description of the course in County Office of Education pamphlet and thought it sounded exactly like training that I needed as we started out after-school program.  I was interested…

Read More

Debriefing and the Common Core

Research has demonstrated that learning is experienced more deeply and connections are made more broadly when someone debriefs an activity or lesson with youth.  A debrief gives you an opportunity to check on your objective and see if the youth can demonstrate an understanding of the objective.  A debrief gives young people an opportunity to…

Read More

Goal Setting

What’s the difference between a “goal” and an “objective”?  A goal is an aspirational statement of a “place” you would like to be in the future.  A goal is something that we want badly enough that we are willing to work toward reading it.  A goal defines the purpose of the work I am going…

Read More

Managing Transitions—A Public Face

Have you ever witnessed a child throwing a temper tantrum because he/she isn’t ready to stop what he/she is doing and move on to the next activity or location?  Or have you witnessed an older youth become sullen and uncooperative because he/she has been told it’s time to stop?  Have you ever wondered what you…

Read More