Really? Twenty-Five Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4 1/2 Minutes??

If you see me with a scarf, you know I’m trying.  Totally clueless on how to wrap this thing around my neck!  Enjoy!

The Perfect Education

Life:  Black + White = GRAY!  

LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!

Seriously, when it comes to education, I want nothing less than the best for my kids — my two sons and the students I am privileged to serve at my elementary school.

What do you want for your children?  What values are dear to you?

I try to model hard work, a kind heart, and community service.  I want all kids to excel — to achieve, to give back to society, to care for those who are less fortunate … to speak up for those unable to speak for themselves.

At the same time, WE are students of the world’s most prestigious school — the school of Life; rarely black and white — constantly challenging us to strike a balance between the heart and the mind.

Strive to achieve.  How easily and quickly we lose sight of relationships — life’s most precious gifts! 

Put relationship first.  How quickly we may, at times, lose sight of excellence — to better ourselves and our community.

Hard work, kind heart, community service — so clear, so simple — on paper.

Education — the ever so delicate balance between the heart and the mind.

Lifelong learner … that’s me, for sure.   

Two Million Minutes — The 21st Century Education

“American students are capable of competing academically with the best in the world given the right curriculum, the right teachers, the right inspiration, and expectation for success.”  (Robert Compton, Executive Producer Two Million Minutes) 

To expect less than the best from our children and our students is CHILD ABUSE.

Alarming!

Departures: WHAT Is Your Dream Job?

What is your dream job?  Which jobs are beneath you?  WHAT … is a “respectable job”?

Pros make everything look easy … until we step in their shoes and realize, “Man, they sure earn their keep!”

Landscapers who work for hours under the scorching desert sun, custodians who maintain buildings for children and workers, employees who spend countless hours cooking burgers behind the hot grill — thank you, thank you, thank you! 

YOU are the foundation, the priceless fabric of our society!

How about morticians; professionals who prepare the deceased for their burials?

Love, discovery, hope, transformation … Departures capture and reveal the beauty, compassion, and the power of the human heart.

WHAT is your dream job? 

Dale Carnegie’s “Twelve Ways to Persuade”– Place Others First (VII)

Sounds simple enough … in head-knowledge, anyway.  If I could do this 24/7, especially amidst adversity, I will see a halo over my head.

Certainly not yet but I sure can try.

(7) Principle 7: How to get cooperation — Let others believe your ideas are theirs

Make suggestions.  Let others think they reached your conclusion.  People don’t want to be told what to do.  There’s more enthusiasm and buy-in when people are consulted:

A salesman for an x-ray manufacturer sold his equipment to one of the largest hospitals in Brooklyn.  How?  By seeking his potential customer’s suggestion and thoughts on product-development and improvement!

(The salesman didn’t tout his horn or force his ideas on his customer.  Smart guy — a well deserved sale!)

(8) The magic formula: Try to see the situation from others’ perspectives

The glass is always half full.  People respond favorably to warmth and encouragement; never to harsh actions and criticisms.

(Right on Mr. Carnegie!  You and Aesop understand human nature so well!)

(9) Empathize with others’ ideas and desires.

Three-fourths of the people you’ll meet are hungering and thirsting for empathy.  Give it to them.  They will love you:

A manger of an elevator-escalator company persuades a leading hotel manager to shutdown his escalator for a few hours.  The first manager suggests, “I know your hotel is quite busy and understand your concern.  We would like to keep the escalator shutdown to a minimum.  Our diagnosis of the situation, however, shows that if we don’t complete the job now, your escalator may suffer more serious damage resulting in inconveniencing your guests for several days.”

(Fill a need!  Let people know “what’s in it for them.”  Love your insights, Mr. Carnegie!)

Last but not least, the chapter concludes with a 2500-year-old Chinese wisdom:

The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them.  Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams.  So the sage, wishing to be above men, put himself below them; wishing to be before them, he put himself behind them.  Thus though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.

Truth — universal, eternal, supreme. 

Freedom — The Right of All Mankind

Throughout history, dictators — despicable tyrants — have fought tooth and nail to control the masses.

If  they would only understand — violence and oppression may guarantee short-term power (a generation or two, at most), but never the respect nor the support of its people necessary for the governance and prosperity of a sovereign nation.

Iran, for example, is at a point of no return.  People are openly defiant; cell phone photos and the Internet exposing the regime’s violent acts for the world to see.

The dust will settle; sooner, if not later.

Then what?  Who will be next on world’s stage?

North Korea, perhaps — an isolated nation of human tragedies, a regime thriving on criminality, “hell on earth” with an estimated unemployment rate as high as 95 percent — where bribery, stealing, starvation, human trafficking, imprisonment, and torture are the norm.

Atrocities abound:

• In North Korea, good people can’t survive; stealing, a necessary evil.
• High-ranking North Korean defectors have testified before Congress saying that the government is overseeing the production and export of heroin and methamphetamine.
• The quality of fertilizer South Koreans give the North is so good (and expensive), the North Korean government sells it to a Southeast Asian country.  The North continues to use fertilizer full of acidity, yielding minimal harvest.
• The regime practices collective punishment — guilt by association.  “Political wrongdoers” and their families (accidentally sitting on a newspaper printed with the leader’s face, not hanging leaders’ portraits in homes [officials check residences], etc.) — up to three generations — are imprisoned for their “crime.”

Despite horrific accounts, positive changes are taking place inside one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.  Political shifts are occurring due to the flow of refugees back and forth from China.

These days, North Koreans are openly criticizing their government — when a few gather, discontent spills over … North Koreans are learning their country is not “paradise on earth.” (Full Story)

As people discover the truth, the regime’s grip loosens … Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, is now the last bastion of super-control.  The rural area is becoming the ‘Wild West.’”  With fear declining, there’s great potential for change.  The regime’s control is deteriorating. (Tom White, Executive Director of Voice of the Martyrs)

Long Life and Happiness — 70 Percent Lifestyle, 30 Percent Genes

How encouraging!  We have way more control over our lifestyle than we’ve ever imagined!  Genes are predetermined; lifestyle, we can change!

Someday, we’ll all be centenarians — pursuing our passion with the people we love!

Here are eight simple secrets to living longer, better:

• Believe (spiritual or religious participation)
• Family First (listen, laugh, appreciate what we have)
• Belong (to a healthy, social network)
• Move (simple activities like walking and gardening)
• Live with a purpose (hobbies, work, contribute to the greater good)
• Eat plant-based diet
• Eat until 80 percent full
• Drink one or two glasses of red wine each day (antioxidant — Polyphenol — scrubs away artery clogging materials)

Full Story

Curriculum Guide for Educators

YouTube Symphony — 21st Century Global Orchestra

How clever — bringing people together — through the power of music, the universal language, and the online community!

On April 15, musicians worldwide will play at New York City’s prestigious Carnegie Hall.

Participants comprise amateurs and professionals who have auditioned and proved themselves worthy members of the 21st century orchestra.

Accomplished participants have met three challenges:

1. Video submission demonstrating the musician’s interpretation of an original Tan Dun composition written specifically for this program
2. Talent showcase video designed to demonstrate musical and technical ability.  Panels of musical experts from world renowned symphonies — San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and others — narrowed down the finalists.
3. The YouTube community voted on the semifinalists from February 14, 2009 through February 22, 2009.  (Full Story)

Enormous talents may be at the brink of discovery!  Wow!

April 15 — that’s the BIG DAY; April 16, for those who can’t be at Carnegie Hall (like me).  Can’t wait to see the musicians in action!

Stay tuned on YouTube!

Friends — You Make My Day!

How would you define friend — someone to play sports with, someone to laugh with, someone to share your heart and thoughts with — a favored companion, joined at the hip?

We’re all wired for friendship — from the personal to the national level!  What’s life without friends?!

FRIENDS, to me, are:

• Fun
• Reliable
• Intelligent
• Essential
• New and old
• Direct
• Spontaneous

How about you?

Thank You Veterans! (II)

We are free because of the brave.

Our heroes earned our birthrights and privileges — our abilities and opportunities to exercise our liberty and the pursuit of happiness — our freedom of religion, the press, free speech, our right to assemble, and more!

Sometimes the World Seems

by Larissa Myschuk (Columbia JHS, Fife, Washington)

Sometimes the world seems like it’s upside-down, inside out

Torn down the middle, in need of arrangement

Desperate for guidance, wanting direction

Lacking leadership, losing patience

Turning and flipping, backwards and sideways

Speeding endlessly forward, on a path of self-destruction

And the only thing to stop it, the only thing to calm it,

Is the lives of the men that fight passionately,

Fall readily and die willingly.

THANK YOU VETERANS!

(Full Story)