BUILDING CHARACTER

11 Principles

From the Character Education partnership, here are 11 principles for comprehensive and effective character education the group is promoting:

1) Promote core ethical values as the basis of good character

2) Define character comprehensively to include thinking, feeling and behavior

3) Use a comprehensive, intentional, proactive and effective approach

4) Create a caring school community

5) Provide students with opportunities to engage in moral action

6) Provide a meaningful and challenging curriculum that helps all students to succeed

7) Foster students’ intrinsic motivation to learn and to be good people

8) Engage school staff as professionals in a learning and moral community

9) Foster school moral leadership and long-term support for character education

10) Engage families and community members as partners in character education

11) Evaluate the character of the school, its staff and its students to inform the character education effort

This list is admirable and necessary but these principles need to start with parents not teachers. Schools are the partner to supplement character building enforced by parental guidance.

Schools are only part of the solution for building good character and leadership skills among the today’s youth. Beyond parents, other community institutions responsible include church/spiritual, government, business and social/recreational outlets. Without community and parental involvement, schools are powerless to effect widespread change.

Once again it looks like public schools are being asked to take control for something that is the domain of parents. Like childhood obesity, schools are powerless to correct this behavior without the help of parents. Character building cannot be a subject imbedded in a curriculum. It is part of culture and of civilized society and must be constantly demonstrated and reinforced by everyone.

Isn’t it interesting that he institution most closely associated with character building is not demanding to “lead the charge”? Spirituality is supposedly a high priority among US citizens, so where are the people representing the various ministries offering to provide character building studies? Aren’t these individuals the character builders?

Students need character building education but don’t expect teachers already burdened with trying to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind to be the solution. They are support and they lead by example but they are not the solution.

Job Loss

A person losing their job has been a way of life since the early 1980’s when the world (notably Japan and Germany) caught up with dominating US companies. Manufacturing was the major force in the US job market 25 years ago but it was undermined by an emerging world economy that could build quality products for less money. The era of “jobs for life” had ended.

According to the US Department of Labor, the US averages about 2 million lost jobs per year. In 1997, 1.44 million jobs were permanently lost. The best year came in 2000 when only 1.1 million jobs were lost (during the economic boom) and the worst year in 2003, when 2.85 million jobs were eliminated (the tech bubble burst). In 2006, 1.69 million jobs were terminated. Because change can come quickly instead of taking generations, employment is dynamic (new jobs are created and old ones eliminated).

The point is that people should not be preparing to do one job and instead should have the attitude that employment is a constant state of change. Instead of trying to anticipate what might be the next great job, prepare for everything and anything. The best way to accomplish that goal is to read and to practice your writing skills.

If you can learn, think and translate your thinking to paper, someone will hire you.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

Average Is Natural

It takes much work and energy to reach and sustain excellence. Dedication to excellence is against our natural being. As humans we are more suited to enjoy life, be average and stay among the masses. We know this by observing nature.

In laser physics, a powerful light is created when an electron releases excess energy (a photon) because it is unable to sustain a higher orbit. By releasing new found energy, an electron returns to its original orbit.

The electron will stay there indefinitely and without much effort until a new external stimulus occurs such as a new source of energy. The process begins again with an excited electron absorbing this new energy, rising to a higher orbit and, in time, releasing that energy and returning to its “comfort zone.”

It is absurd to think of electrons as “people” but people are electrons. Billions of electrons connected together with a magnetic attraction that defines our human presence. People are bundles of energy; stand near a person and feel the warmth.

Hence, we need to be stimulated in order to be innovative, creative and productive. Ignore people, but give them the basics of life and they are quite content to stay in the huddle of the masses or just be average.

Teachers are external sources of energy who stimulate students to reach new levels of energy. Unfortunately, not all students have access to dynamic classrooms. There’s not enough time or resources to create a learning environment for innovation and creativity that energizes students. It’s more efficient, money and time wise, to lecture, test and evaluate the methodology. It is a formula for average.

In the workplace, leaders are the source for energizing employees to be innovative and creative. Unfortunately too many employees do not have access to dynamic leaders who get them involved and energize their thinking. It is more efficient to give directions or plan a day’s work and have managers who oversee that effort. It is a formula for average.

It is our nature to take it easy and enjoy each day. If you plop people in front of a TV or video game console, they will spend the day being amused by these activities. Provide new video content to enjoy and you may never get them to leave the room. It is a formula for average.

To effect change, we need to energize people to attain new orbits. Everyone likes the thrill of new energy and it doesn’t have to be based in fear. Energize people by asking them to get involved and then teach them how. Even though it is impossible for people to sustain their new found energy, they will release new ideas, innovation and creativity that will stimulate others and keep the process going.

Here’s another lesson from physics: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle basically states that the more you observe an object the less likely it will be seen in its original state. In essence, the mere action of observation changes the observed object. This is why leaders interact with people. When a person knows you are interested in them, they respond. We can energize people by paying attention to them. (Cautionary note: Heisenberg’s principle also states that if you only focus on one object the other object will atrophy creating an imbalance; hence take time to offer equal attention to everyone.)

So our choice is to either to take action to be a stimulus or allow people to regress to the mean. Given all the uncertainty in the world the one certainty is that people are not naturally attracted to achieving excellence.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

More Workplace News

Study Indicates Sources for Teenage Spending

As a follow-up to the last column about teenage workers, a study by the Harrison Group and reported in USA Today (3/15/07), indicates that the purchasing power of teens (ages 13-18) totals almost $200 billion annually. The top spending categories are clothes, food, cars, movies and cell phones.

The source for this money comes from parents either as part of family expenses (over 50 percent) or allowances based on “chores” (about 10 percent). Earnings from jobs accounts for less than 20 percent of teens disposable income.

Knowing that school achievement studies suggest that students who work have less success at school than their non-working counterparts, does it make sense for teenagers to work? Does having less than 20 percent discretionary income to spend on the aforementioned categories make a teen’s life incomplete?

Again the key question remains: are communities really interested in promoting academic achievement or do they prefer a cheap labor force?

(Note: teens that work to support family financial needs are not the targets of this curiosity. And there’s a good chance those teens were not the subjects of the above study. Asking teens to carry the burden of helping families pay for food or a utility is a community issue that needs a solution. Otherwise, communities are guilty of promoting generational poverty that will continue adding to the ranks of under-educated and under-prepared persons unable to cope with requirements of the service economy.)

Growing Business

An annual survey of CEOs completed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers revealed the following regarding how they plan to grow their respective businesses:

~~ Over half (57 percent) will focus on new markets, mergers and acquisitions, new products and innovation;

~~ About a fourth (23 percent) will focus on better penetration of existing markets for existing products; and,

~~ About 16 percent will focus on better customer service and employee retention.

What this data should suggest, if you are currently employed and want to advance (or if you are unemployed and want to be hired), that you need to focus on creating or exploiting opportunities that builds new business for your employer. Clearly, 80 percent of CEOs want ideas to improve the financials of their company by increasing customer base.

CEOs are not saying they want leadership, problem-solving, critical thinking, more communication skills or other such ideas commonly promoted in business literature or by “gurus”. They want to know how to “get” and sell to customers.

This means you need to be creative and exploit technology to expand the number of customers. Or, use your creativity to develop the next social network website, the next video gaming system or the next high performance, high mileage car.

Companies focus on the bottom line so prepare to address that basic need. Here’s a hint: look at social trends. For example, the US Census projects that the number of people ages 65 and older in the labor force will double over the next 10 years. How would you get your company ready to absorb workers represented by this age group? If you are unemployed, how do you position yourself as an expert to offer training and development for people who want to return to the workforce?

Staying employed and enjoying a satisfying lifestyle is easy if you know how to create profit!

You Knew This!

The estimated number of hours the average American spends using various types of media is:

TV @ 1555 hours

Radio @ 974 hours

Internet @ 195 hours

Reading a newspaper @ 175 hours

As long as TV, with its ever increasing time devoted to commercials promoting the insatiability of consumerism, dominates people’s free time, can we really expect this country to maintain its position as a major economic and critical thinking power?

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

TEEN AGE WORKERS

Too Many Activities Affecting Achievement

According to a study in the March 2007 issue of Pediatrics, US teenagers 14-18 are working an average of 16 hours per week, many times after 7 pm on school nights and in jobs that violate federal law, such as serving alcoholic beverages. Unfortunately parents don’t see this as a problem because it fits the profile of the American work ethic. Parents with working teenagers view this as a source pride and include their child’s employment in conversations when describing them to friends.

In his book Beyond the Classroom, Professor Laurence Steinberg states that work competes with school. It is not the complement to school many parents believe it is. His research revealed that students will take easier courses so school doesn’t interfere with their job (isn’t that backwards?). The title of chapter nine in his book is All Work and All Play Makes Jack a Dumb Boy and places the blame of low achievement not with schools or teachers but what students do after school. Think about how many times you have heard over the past year that boys are under-achieving in school and not going to college at the same pace of previous generations. Do you think the lure of earning $100 a week and living in the parent’s basement may have anything to do with that trend?

The average teenager now spends up to 80 hours a week on activities that have no relationship to school or achievement (for example, jobs, social activities, gaming, TV, Internet). That’s almost 50 percent of all available hours during the school year. A person under 18 first impulses is to have fun and today’s distractions don’t help keep them focused.

If these kids sleep 8 hours per night, that only leaves 32 hours for school and related activities. If you did the math, your conclusion is they are not getting 8 hours of sleep per night since school takes up about 40 hours per week. Can you picture these kids snoozing, dozing and sleeping during school hours? Even if they can stay awake, fatigue will prevent them from concentrating and achieving excellence in school activities. Not getting a full night of sleep is extremely counter-productive and can be dangerous.

America is the only industrialized country with this imbalance towards work and school. It is ironic that the US public school system was created at the beginning of the 20^th century because it was politically the best way to get young children out of sweat shops. Parents wanted their kids to work to help support the family and businesses liked the cheap labor provided by these kids. The law requiring attendance at school settled the issue.

So now in the 21^st century, a kid with a part-time job means that parents don’t need to provide spending money (allowance) and businesses have a plentiful source of cheap labor. Working students that have a steady amount of discretionary income means these kids fuel the American economy (they are called the greatest consumers in the world). Isn’t 14-18 the target demographic for TV advertising? And of course, once they roll past 18, let’s be sure to bombard them with credit cards so we can keep them hooked on being good consumers.

It would seem the US has a choice if it is serious about improving scholastic achievement: either make working under 18 illegal or make going to school beyond age 14 optional. The country can’t have it both ways.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

PERSONAL INVESTMENT

Reading is Control

In a survey of nearly 2000 workers, 47 percent said they would improve their employment opportunities by either getting a degree or by learning new skills. Certainly this is a noble and expected sentiment but it is a recipe for personal failure and disappointment.

First, companies are abandoning their most useful educational tool, the corporate ladder. There was a time before Wall Street estimates dominated corporate thinking that everyone had an opportunity to grow with the business. With few exceptions, everyone was hired as a beginner. He or she was given initial responsibilities and assigned to a department manager who would be responsible for teaching the corporate culture and needs. This investment of time and learning may take years to complete but as the older workers retired, the new leadership was in place. And it was very important when it became necessary to move into new products or services quickly.

Now, bottom line thinking dictates that results need to be instant; there is no time for this longitudinal process of learning. People are hired with the expectation they can deliver immediately. The corporate world believes that a person with a college degree is somehow magically ready to perform.

Middle management, individuals in the learning process, are terminated regularly. The continuum of work ready employees has been dismantled for the past 25 years and thousands of companies have disappeared. Yet, CEO’s still use termination of workers as their first response to lower earnings. As a result, companies now have a life span shorter than the average human being. The blame game about failure keeps gurus and colleges in business.

Second, if education was doing its job, it would make sure that people have access to a library of just-in-time learning modules. That means 5 to 10 minute instructional vignettes that people can learn quickly, regularly review and employ in the workplace. Instead, the traditional model of attending classes and spending hours and years in the classroom dominates adult learning. By the time people finish these classes and earn a degree or certificate, the world has moved on rendering the new graduate obsolete. Compounding the problem are instructors/professors that teach what they know, not what is needed in the workplace. An in-house training department would be much more effective, but that kind of service costs money and is the first on everyone’s list for termination.

Finally, people need to stop embracing passive learning that is predicated on attending classes and allowing someone to spoon feed learning. Of course, that is the result of the US education system. Teachers teach and we learn what they teach or at least that is how it is sold. Yet, every study that attempts to measure learning concludes that people learn best when they can direct their learning.

Hence, as an adult, you can direct your learning. Start by devoting an hour everyday to reading. Read books and journals that will support your career. Search the Internet for sites that support your need for information. Ignorance is a personal choice.

Success is defined a being disciplined. Turning off the TV and reading is your choice. Very few people have ever become financially successful by watching sitcoms, sports or movies. If you are interested in entertainment, help create more by learning how to write scripts, compose music or learn to act.

The faster you realize that TV is a mass control mechanism to dull peoples’ desire and keep them from achieving, the faster you can find success. Your brain is your key to success and it is your choice.

Political Integrity

We elect persons to represent us in government because we believe that he or she is a leader and will act in our best interests. Politicians are our source of reason in a country based in capitalism. And to be sure capitalism works but it is best served when governed. In other words, politicians are the bridge between business greed and personal need. Societies throughout history thrive when there is a balance between wealth and sharing.

As voters we need to do our job and elect people who are dedicated to preserving a society dedicated to health, education and the eradication of poverty and homelessness. It is disconcerting when politicians pander to special interest groups. Most of the time these special interest groups are only interested in promoting narrow thinking and are of little interest to the majority of Americans.

We want leaders and not everything a leader does will be supported or popular. At least be consistent; you won’t be faulted for creating an agenda that benefits a country of people and not just a fraction. For example, don’t state what a terrible job we are doing with scientific discovery and at the same time support “intelligent design.” Science has proven methodology that promotes empirical evidence and can be replicated anywhere in the world. “Intelligent design” is personal faith and each faith based group has its version of creation. Support scientific discovery and leave faith to personal choice.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton are early favorites in their respective parties. Over the next year, pay attention to the consistency of their messages. If they both continue to change their convictions from speech to speech, why should either one be trusted as our leader?

All politicians deserve our respect and support. They carry a heavy responsibility to model leadership behavior to Americans and the world. If they betray our confidence or their convictions, look for someone new.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC