Excerpt from S3 Episode 24 interview with Margot Livesey

Fears, Goals, and Reaching the Next Level

I can't believe how much time has past since my last blog. Since that blog, I have finished about seven short stories, half a novel, and several articles. I graduated with my second graduate degree from UMKC with a 3.94 GPA. I also decided to pick up 18 graduate hours in English. I have had the good fortune of taking classes from two predominately well-established professors who have real writing careers as published novelists and poets. I have learned a lot. The question is, have I learned enough to evolve as a writer? As an educator? Or have I wasted three premium years of building my niche in the coaching/educational sector? I think this time out was mandatory. Reaching the next level often means we have to take inventory, hone new skills, discard what is no longer working for us, and make sure we are on the right path. I know two things: I write a lot better than I did three years ago and that liberal hell hole has made me literally, fearless.

Back to this blog, I asked myself, why do I call it The Narb? Narb was the term of affection my mother called my dad when I was a child. To me, it reminds me of my father, a man of integrity who constantly reflected on life and the "why" of it. I think I inherited that same mindset.


This week, the Coronavirus has the world in a fear grasp. While it is a real disease, the real issue is the state of our over preparedness for an emergency. In America, the toilet paper shortage demonstrates that most people could survive more than a week without going to the store. This is really dumb. My father having lived through the Great Depression instilled in me the necessity of preparing winter food stock in the summer, keeping everything with a motor tuned up and in operating order, and living on the cash system, not using credit for daily living. That alone puts one in the weird category in a society that literally lives moment to moment!

Regardless of the month or season, there is always going to become a crisis. Do an inventory of your pantry and supplies and make necessary adjustments. Pretend you can't leave your house literally for two months. What would you need? Then stock up and forget about it. Let the idiots fight over that last roll of toilet paper! The well prepared will be able to weather any storm: real, imagined, natural, or manmade.



EJN

Helping Others to Reach Dreams...

It has been an intense summer as I technically started my post-graduate work with a graduate prose poetry class thrown in for personal development. I graduated in May with my second master's in education from UMKC with a concentration in TESOL, the field I have taught in for about 18 years.  Today I spent several hours going through youtube videos to try to find some that might aid my private job coaching clients. Why reinvent the wheel when you can recommend already produced TED talk for free information for the seekers?  So, for a short blog entry, may I highly recommend this Ted Talk at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2rG4Dg6xyI&feature=share    Achieving goals starts with networking with others and helping each other to achieve goals is key to success. Check it out.

Reflection of the Moment 04/21/2019

Reflection of the Moment 4/21/19

So many choices and so little time. I for one, believe in moving forward and not looking or going back. What once was, is now a memory-whether good or bad. 

What is and will be are new elements and must incorporate the best opportunity that will launch the self, the career, the objectives, and the dreams into the absolute best possible future outcome regardless of any other factor, any one else's opinion or bias, or any kind of doubt/fear.

And that is the entire basis of living your truth. It does not matter what any body else thinks. They need to go find their own truth and authenticity. Yours belongs to ONLY you.

So get to it. 

Introduction to Scaffolding and the Lessons of Life

Introduction to Scaffolding and the Lessons of Life

            In the paradigm shift of education and learning, one of the best concepts I have learned in my second master’s program in education at the University of Missouri, Kansas City is about scaffolding.  Scaffolding is the concept that the teacher should ask the right questions during the lesson to help encourage discussion among the participants in partner and group work in which each student must attach some life experience or idea to the class subject. This cementing personal experience to current knowledge helps learners to create their own learning versus the traditional method as the teacher as the sole dispenser of knowledge.  While the Asian learning model is still traditional, in my private practice, I use both traditional and contemporary theories in my classrooms and coaching practice.

            Scaffolding stands as an excellent teaching tool in any learning environment. First, it allows personal experience to be a foundational basis for individual learning, which both includes the learner in the educational process and also validates the personal experience as being valid and noteworthy.  I recall my first semester back to grad school after a twenty-year absence from the first graduate degree. I felt like a fish out of water. The first thing I noticed was how my prior fifteen years of teaching experience seemed to be of little relevance to the new educational theories I was learning. However, by the second semester, I found my coursework requiring me to draw from my personal experience to demonstrate the given theory we were studying in practice. This soon became my favorite part of any theory paper or classroom discussion as I had almost a generation of experiences from my ESL teaching years at Durham Technical Community College, my international internship in Thailand, and 18 years of private educational practice as a tutor and consultant. Scaffolding made my new learning environment come alive. 

            This concept is transferable to any learning environment including business, personal, and spiritual situations.

            In business, we often coach trying to cram new concepts into a client’s mind. The fail rate of this way is extremely high because the client has nothing to relate it to or to scaffold it to because he/she has not been asked the questions that trigger the cognitive processes that must be undertaken to relate the new concepts to prior knowledge. It does not happen automatically but must be implemented through a strategic brain storming session in the form of questions posed and reflective time to think/medicate about the topic. It is best to write down what was discovered in the reflective brainstorming and the final step would be to share it with others present (the coach or co-workers).

            In the personal learning realm, one of the biggest errors people make when they attempt to do self help books is they just read them and then stop. The correct way to learn any concept, improve any behavior, or overcome any issue is to follow these steps: 1) Read/skim a chapter at a time. 2) Go back and highlight the parts that grab your attention or that you feel are important and write them down in a journal or notebook hence called your reflective journal.  3) After the highlighting/note taking, write the words: personal reflection below your notes in your journal. Think about the concept(s) you just read about. Can you think of an experience you have had that relates to this principle? Can you remember a lesson learned before related to this? How can you incorporate these ideas into your life? Why is this concept important, in your opinion?

            There is no limit as to how much you can write. This is all about you, your experiences, and taking new knowledge and applying it to your life. Through this process, you will experience a new deep structure kind of learning that will actually help you to incorporate the new knowledge into your life, change your thinking or behavior, and prepare you for more insightful learning.

            Lastly, in spiritual learning centers regardless of the kind (church, assembly, synagogue or otherwise), scaffolding can be a game changer.  How many times have you sat through a sermon and almost fell a sleep? How many times has your mind wondered and you caught yourself daydreaming or staring off into space?  If so, this spiritual experience is nothing but a charade.  Scaffolding can be also be implemented either personally or by the spiritual leader to improve the learning. “The dialectical themes of spiritual dwelling and spiritual seeking are used in the relational spirituality model to reference ways that others may engage their spirituality for (a) a sense of grounding, community, commitment, and/or affect regulation (dwelling) or (b) a sense of exploration of meaning (particularly of suffering), appreciation for diversity, ways of holding ambiguity and complexity, and constructing/ reconstructing one’s worldview (seeking). Some individuals find ways to integrate spiritual dwelling and seeking, whereas others may be oriented to one of those themes or neither” (Correa & Sandage, 2018, p. 55). Scaffolding in the spiritual learning environment connects the individual to the concept, his/her role in spiritual experience, and the personal greater connection to fellow believers. Remember, this is cross applicable regardless of the context of the religious belief.

             To do it as an individual, try to write down a sentence every few minutes about what the speaker has said and how it applies to you or what does it make you think about?  Continue doing this until the end of the session and then spend a few minutes collecting your thoughts about the overall subject and what it means to you. You can also introduce a friend to this idea that is there with you and you can do this process together. Remember, both writing down your thoughts and then sharing them verbally bring the process of scaffolding to its most effective application. 

            The spiritual teacher can best incorporate scaffolding into making the session in which he or she is speaking into a group workshop structure with attendees facing each other in small groups around tables. The traditional format with everyone facing forward is archaic for group learning, sharing, and scaffolding.  The concept here is taking the spiritual lesson to a deeper level so that it can be a) personalized by the receiver, b) applied by the receiver, c) remembered by the receiver for future application and further scaffolding as the lesson come to remembrance as he or she goes about living their daily life. And isn’t that the main reason for spiritual learning?

            Scaffolding is an extremely valuable tool. If you are interested in ways this can be grafted into your classrooms, business, or spiritual environments, feel free to write me. I would be glad to help you to design a workshop model and written materials that can be used for any kind of future learning situation.

           

References

Bernier, A., Carlson, S. M., & Whipple, N. (2010). From external regulation to self-regulation: Early parenting precursors of young children’s executive functioning.  Child Development, 81, 326 –339.

Conner, D. B., & Cross, D. R. (2003). Longitudinal analysis of the presence, efficacy and             stability of maternal scaffolding during informal problem-solving interactions.  British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 315–334.

Correa, J., & Sandage, J. Relational spirituality as scaffolding for cognitive-behavioral therapy. (2018). Spirituality in Clinical Practice. 5 (1), 54 – 63.

Mulvaney, M. K., McCartney, K., Bub, K. L., & Marshall, N. L. (2006). Determinants of           dyadic scaffolding and cognitive outcomes in first graders. Parenting: Science and Practice, 6, 297–320.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The New Path

Part of living life is knowing when you find a goal worth pursuing. Not every road is meant for you. But sometimes one might just kind of appear from behind a tree as you are walking along and take you by surprise. In such a case, it is wise to analyze the quality of the road to determine how safe it is, how old it is, and how promising it might be in terms of where it might lead you to. Stumbling on to such a path is not an accident. People spend their lives looking at maps and following GPS instructions. To just to "happen" to come upon a path/road not on the map that had not been spotted before is quite the serendipitous moment. Most likely, the creator knew that was the perfect road for you. It just had to be encountered at the right time, and at the correct fork in the road or perhaps you would not have seen it.

It this metaphor, we see the rising of unexpected opportunity. Such will come in one of several forms for you. May you have the intuition to recognize it when it arrives, the wisdom to choose to walk down that path, and the faith in God to take a chance. Venturing from the familiar into the unfamiliar can be scary for some people (yet for some of us, we thrive on looking for these unusual opportunities).

Your path is coming. Are you ready?

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

Beware Regurgitated Ideas that are Costly

There are a lot of job coaches out there. I personally spent several hours this week reading through their websites and materials. It turns out that the majority of their materials are just regurgitated concepts and formulas from the top three people in the field.

Why doesn't everyone create original material? Why doesn't everyone focus on the client's background and personality instead of being clones who overcharge for copied and dated material?

Originality begets more originality. Be original. Develop your interests and forge your career path. Stop listening to smooth talking liars.It is not about following a pre-created program but developing your own talents, presentation, and skill set.

Make sure you find a coach that spends the time on you and enhancing your skill set, objectives, and overall package. Spend your money on originality not on a costly regurgitation.