Thoughts on Education, Leadership, and Life from an Outsider
“Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.”
Tim Ferriss
I was a computer science major back in the early part of this new millennia in another life. Somehow, I managed to leverage that into getting a job writing computer science standards for the state of Kentucky.
I still don’t know how that happened. Weird.
Anyway, the first coding language I learned was Java. It’s a beast with a very steep learning curve that intimidates most people. And it’s a horrible language to tackle when you’re first starting out.
If I had it to do all over again, I might go this route.
I love service projects organized by students. Clothing drives, food drives, clean-up days, and many others are great ways to engage students in their communities.
But we shouldn’t just leave service projects to after-school clubs.
What if we made them part of the learning process in core content classes?
Tom Holman, board chair of the Search Institute, told me that their research shows one of the three most positive indicators (predictors) of future success among young people is their belief that “what they do makes a difference” (searchinstitute.org). He also recommends the Multiplying Good organization, which can be found at minnesota.multiplyinggood.org.
Producing More Successful Students Like Grant
It’s near the end of the school year for most places in the US and that often means certificates.
Whether you’re handing out certificates to students or teachers (hello PD), there are options for you if you’re using The Google.
How to Create and Send Personalized Certificates in Google Workspace
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Cory Doctorow’s work at Pluralistic inspired the layout, focus, and work displayed here. Hat tip to Cory for all his fine work.
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