Here I go taking a first step into a pile of possibilities.

Okay, first look at colleges has been completed.  Five different types of campuses and programs, all in the same geographical area.  It was a really helpful first look.  My daughter did a great job of observing during each visit.  One college had a program that she thought may fit well but not very nice facilities.  Another had good facilities but was all girls.  Another had a good program and nice facilities, and is a good focus to move toward.  The fourth had good facilities and good programs but no programs of interest.  Finally, one was an art program.  And, tour guide and admissions presenters ranged from well spoken and knowledgable to low talkers with little agenda.

Let's go back to those steps...

What did she want to be when she was little?
How does she spend her free time?
Who does she look up to?
If she could do any job for one day, what would it be?

What type of experiences has she had that really felt exciting or interesting?
Is there something she finds herself returning to again and again?

Which classes does she find easy right now?
Which classes does she find more challenging, but she wants to do well in?
Which classes do not click?

I asked these questions, and received these answers, and you know what, THIS IS NOT A SIMPLE PROCESS.  But, it is an important process and well worth the time and effort to follow through.

I take a step back, and use the meditation breathing I have been working on, and remind myself that this is not MY journey but one that I am trying to help with because I have been around a bit longer.  And, I pull out one of my valuable, handy dandy worksheets (The Art of Mindfulness -- Living Your Life as if it Really Matters...thank you Thomas R. Plunkett) and read that

MINDFULNESS IS PAYING ATTENTION ON PURPOSE,

WE HAVE MORE POSSIBILITIES IN EACH MOMENT THAN WE REALIZE (Thich Nhat Hanh)

 and my personal favorite LIFE IS SHORT SO WE MUST MOVE VERY SLOWLY (Thai Proverb)

Hey, it is all about the fit.  I am working with one wonderful child right now, and another wonderful child is in the thick of his first year.

College is the right path, right?  That is the next question on this journey...

Walking up and down the steps

I have been developing a lot of appreciation for people who are moving from one career or job to another.  Shutting down an office or long-standing project and moving onto the next is not for the faint-hearted.  And, it must be amazingly terrible if that came about because of a layoff or shutting down of a company.  I am trying to go through home-school materials and figure out what can be used as I transition (morph?) to the next step.

Life happens in steps; steps of all kinds.

  Some lead from one level to another, some lead in an ever moving circle,

but they are all steps.

And, sometimes the steps lead to a jumping off place where we try out what we have been learning on the steps.

So, after lots of steps and quite a bit of angst

I realize I really did accomplish some things with home-schooling our children, and teaching others' children, and organizing classes, and putting together two conferences (because I thought they should happen).   Our children may have different thoughts and feelings about this adventure, and they should because they were right there the entire time.

But, how to translate this into transition?

I tried to set up a Meet Up session at the suggestion of a very good friend this week.  It was going to be me speaking to interested parents about deciding if home-schooling is a good idea, and then how to set the ball in motion.  No one signed up, which is fine.  I am going to reschedule and try it again.  Guess what?!  These people have no idea of who I am, and no reason to pay $30 to come hear what I have to say.  This is a wake up call as I transition from my small, vibrant group to the bigger world.  HELLO!

Yesterday, I wrote a short article, for a neighborhood magazine,

about what is happening (in a limited way) in the education world, and what I am contributing (my game and blog).  Will they think it is self-promotion?  Who knows?  It is my small step toward saying something to the larger world.







So, back to the steps toward helping teenagers preparing for college.

My focuses today are MAKING DECISIONS and WHAT IT MEANS TO FIND YOUR PLACE.

"Whenever someone makes a decision the brain is awash in feeling, driven by its inexplicable passions.  Even when a person tried to be reasonable and restrained, these emotional impulses secretly influence judgement...The simple truth of the matter is that making good decisions requires us to use both side of the mind." (How We Decide by Johan Lehrer, Into, xvi)

Why do we think choosing a college should be based on SAT/ACT scores, grades and coached essays?  I am heading out for a first look at colleges with our daughter.  More steps and more will be revealed...

The Power to Do Something Meaningful

I have been working hard to make sense of the sections of my game.  How can this be useful?  Who can I use it with?  But, this week outside of my self-absorbed steps life continues on, and has spit back some moments that grabbed my attention.

I went to a yoga class.  I want to thank my husband for pointing out that I had been telling lots of people they should go to yoga, neglecting the fact that it has been some years since I actually had been to a class.  Life in Motion YOGA

So, I arrived and was trying to become ready for the class when two women who both had connections to a certain university began a conversation about a high school student in this area who is allegedly a polyglot (he knows something of 22 languages.)  I needed to go to this yoga class and was in my most critical place and asked "what good would this be"?  I made no friends.  However, at the end of the class I took the younger woman aside to apologize for my bad attitude and learned that she had decided to take a break from college after 1 1/2 years because she had worked intensely to get into the college and wasn't sure why she was there.  One question I will ask students as they are deciding if college is a good plan is WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE?

Thank you Charles Schulz!!

This question is simple and we have all faced it, right?  Ballerina, teacher, scuba diver, mailman, fireman, etc., etc.

  But, she couldn't answer the question.  She said she tried to go back there and found she couldn't.  And, for her, college is what is supposed to happen because of where she is in her world.

I have been listening to people speak at the SCHOOLS FOR TOMORROW conference at nytimes.com.  I feel elated that I listened to Sal Khan speak

 and I've learned about his new Bank of America budget and finance lessons.  I got to hear him talk about how important his website and technology is but it has to be connected to live teachers.

But, it was Anant Agarwal (President, edX) who really blew me away when he spoke about the problem of colleges looking at data about successful admissions and how really good colleges only accept limited percentages of applicants AND then trying to show that graduates are able to get really good jobs at top places.  Mr. Agarwal spoke about the difference between getting bright students and not doing any damage, and really providing an actual learning or transformative experience.

What is happening in the educational process today, and does it lead to working in an area that each of us want to be?   Benefits of a college education

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU KNOW WHO CAN HARDLY WAIT TO LEAVE THEIR JOB AND DO WHAT THEY REALLY WANT TO DO?

  Is it that difficult to develop the very important skills that we all need to have to be good, solid human beings who are successful?
Guess what?  You can be the most intelligent person in the world, speak lots of languages, number crunch until the cows come home but

if you don't know how to be kind,
communicate in a way that invites people to want to hear what you say or join your thinking process, navigate,
help others grow in confidence then
can you count yourself as a success?

Recently I read an interview with Simon Anderson, CEO of Dreamhost (NYTimes, Adam Bryant).  Mr. Anderson, in response to what questions he would ask an interviewee said, "Probably the first one would be, “Tell me about the first experience in your life when you realized that you had the power of change or the power to do something meaningful.”

I have been doing lots of reading these past several months.  Where does the motivation come from for wanting to go to college and what is valued in the process of applying?

I found a list "top ten things colleges look for" which is pretty general.  They include grades, scores, recommendations, extracurriculars, and of course the application.

Then, I found a list of questions that Suzanne Colligan, Director of College Counseling at Georgetown Prep suggests students ask themselves when thinking about college.  They include:
-What is something you've always wanted to try?
-If you could do any job for a day, what would it be?
-As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
-What are some things you feel you do well?
-Who do you look up to?

WOW!  Looking back at this post there are a number of thoughts.  But, what is clear to me is that EDUCATION is more than fulfilling someone else's idea of success.  I wonder what the answer would be if I visited several different classrooms, even just in my own city, and asked one or two students in each just these four questions.  And, then looked at their grades and activities to see if there was any kind of connection?

Do I have the power to do something meaningful with it?

Shaping the Clay

I have just spent the last couple of hours creating a tool for defining what someone wants in a college.  It was exhilarating and I can hardly wait to offer it to some real people.  It is a risk to expose ideas that have been living in one's brain and imagination for awhile.  They are so perfect living in an all-accepting place.  But, hey, they are like seeds in a packet complete with a pretty picture of what the plant would look like if you actually stuck it in the dirt.

"We shape clay into a pot, but it is emptiness that holds whatever we want." (Tao Te Ching)

                                                                                                  (www.flickr.com)

I am now the parent of a college student and a student who is beginning the college search.  Have I learned anything?  One hopes.

From a parents' point of view it is very challenging yet amazing to have a child take the leap to the next step on the journey.  It feels sad because it is a loss.  But, it is also a beginning and has all of the shimmer of newness.  There is plenty of room for reality to enter in but it is in between the sentences where the learning happens.  I have never been carried away with GPAs or awards but I do get very excited when my children know how to do or use something.  (Not that grades or awards aren't satisfying...)  And, it isn't just my children, but me and anyone else I have the fortune to be with.)

I do know that I have some understanding of how this process can work.  And, that there are many paths leading to "what do I want to be when I grow up?"  I have been taking a couple of them:  homeschooling and game design.  Maybe it's that rebellious child inside that insists on doing things her way, and who asks inconvenient questions in an attempt to get to the bottom of the question.

"As people grow up, they cease to play and they seem to give up the yield of pleasure which they gain from playing." (Sigmund Freud)

I have been observing more and more people who seem to want to throw off the cloak of their job or career, and do something they WANT to be doing.  My inconvenient question is "WHY DON'T WE FIGURE OUT WHAT WE WANT TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE?"

Imagine icons

Learning is Serious Work.

I just watched a TED lecture about being an inspiring speaker and the graphic and speech (yes, it was inspiring) gave me an "aha" moment.  And, of course the speaker used one of my favorite words:  WHY?

Why did I decide to home-school our children and why am I working on a game which is a tool for students to determine if college may be a good direction?  Well, I had to go back to kindergarten for the beginning.

I was a challenging child because at that point I was an only child and had lots of attention from all of the adults in my life.  School was a foreign concept, and the idea of being in a group of kids my own age following rules for the herd, and competing was a very FOREIGN concept.  But, when one was five years old with both parents working to provide, and living in a rural community, one goes to kindergarten.

My memories from kindergarten are sketchy but I do remember drawing a large giraffe and then trying to erase it because I wasn't happy with my picture.  I remember pink frosted animal cookies and running in the hall when I wasn't supposed to.  And, then I have these two very, very distinct memories.

Remember Weekly Reader?  It was a staple of kindergarten and if my memory serves me there was a story and an activity.  Well, once, the activity focused on putting plums in a pie.  Okay, okay, everyone knows the "little Jack Horner" rhyme.  I knew what was coming so I drew my plums in the pie.  CUT TO BIG PROBLEM!!!!

My teacher, who was a well-respected and very capable lady who had taught for years, made me stand in the corner.

 This was a very large moment in my young life.  I did not connect it to disobeying (a major point of classroom teaching).  I connected it to having an original thought.

So, that was the

Remember our friend, Plato?

"With anything young and tender the most important part of the task is the beginning of it; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression most readily taken."  Plato, The Republic

Years and years go by filled with lots of stories, and when I have children I send them off to school.  But, I, also go to school.  And, even with that sometimes it is not enough.

WHY do other people get to make decisions about how to EDUCATE my children?

WHY did other people get to make those decisions about MY EDUCATION?

LEARNING is serious work.  I am not the end all expert but I am invested in my children getting what they need.  And, I know the importance of asking WHY.

[What is "learning"?  In my experience, you have learned something if you can pull it out and use it after you figured it out.  And, to do that, either you have to want to use it or there has to be a really good reason for using it.]


Why did I decide to home-school our children and why am I working on a game which is a tool for students to determine if college may be a good direction?  I did and I am because I believe that learning is serious work and I want to make it COUNT.  I'm like him -- sometimes you have to forge in a different direction and sometimes you have to see opportunities that others may not be able to see yet.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

There is a story that keeps replaying in my life.  It is about the big shots and the little guys.

 The big shots are the people who got the As in school, became the prom king and queen or won the football game.  They got into their top college choice, went on to graduate with honors and got a great job with a big firm.  They don't pay a lot of taxes and probably vote Republican.  They have all of the
power and do not really care about the little guys.

 Oh yeh, the little guys.

The little guys are the ones who really do the work, have hourly jobs, don't make a lot of money.  The little guys were always too shy or felt too unconfident to raise their hands in class.  They may have gone to college, but only with great financial difficulty.  They were there for their family.  And, they probably voted Democrat.

The little guys read about people who were movers and shakers in the world but couldn't imagine themselves ever really making a difference.  The big shots were too busy getting ahead to care.  And, neither character ever really had the chance to be developed into an actual being.

Beam up to NOW.  The world is a complicated place with lots of undeveloped characters who think of themselves as big shots and little guys.

  But, really, the world is a big, sometimes simple place full of complicated characters.  Nothing is really that difficult to understand.  Power comes in many colors, styles and boxes.  Getting someplace requires taking steps.  Dreams are a great rudder.  If you don't believe you can do something it doesn't matter how big your cheering section it.

I learned to embrace humility by looking at a mountain and a lake this summer.  They were not made by a big shot or a little guy.  Regardless of your belief in God, Higher Power, Buddha or whatever, you cannot argue with a mountain or a lake.  And, I can talk and talk about what I want to do, but, the bottom line is that I know I can make things better.  Just me.  I am a little guy who has been tossed in the sea of people who I thought knew more and better.  I am a big shot who has through the generosity of others had some pretty wonderful options.  And, through my own curiosity, courage and grit I have taken many small steps and gone places.  And, I although I have voted both Democrat and Republican, I am real and not defined by a political label.  (I may always have the belief that just saying "game over" and starting anew or withholding the bathroom is the only way of cleaning up the world's political issues.)

So, I was looking back at posts and picked out some moments that speak to me now:

(1) "My name is Sal Khan.  I'm the founder and original faculty of the Khan Academy, an institution serious about delivering a free education to anyone, anywhere, and I'm writing this book because I believe that the way we teach and learn is at a once-in-a-millennium turning point." (Introduction, The One World Schoolhouse--Education Reimagined)

(2) I remember as a teenager thinking about what I wanted to do, and it wasn't creating an entirely new product--it was making things better.

 BASF We make things better.

And, now, I am doing it AGAIN.

(3) "Quiet persistence"  I had to read almost all of Quiet  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (Susan Cain) to stumble on "...excellent students seem not only to possess the cognitive ability to solve math and science problems, but also to have a useful personality characteristic:  quiet persistence." (201)  This was right after the Mahatma Gandhi quote:  In a gentle way, you can shake the world  and "Aggressive power beats you up; soft power wins you over." (197)


1.  Is going to college worth it because of the cost and outcome?
2.  Do kids learn skills and content in high school that is really valuable, or is it just a grind?
3.  Does high school and college prepare a student for finding a job and really living in the world?

And, for those questions I am convinced I can help find answers.  (IT IS OK TO ASK WHY)


(4) What is "learning"?  In my experience, you have learned something if you can pull it out and use it after you figured it out.  And, to do that, either you have to want to use it or there has to be a really good reason for using it.


So, yes, I am going to invite people who are considering college to ask themselves if it will provide what they are looking for.  And, yes, I am going to give writing a book about the Grateful Dead's influence on our lives a try.  And, YES, I am going to own the experience of home schooling and write about that, too.  And, it's not going to be perfect, but it will be worth it.



I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For  or Have I?

Plato and starting off right on the climb

"With anything young and tender the most important part of the task is the beginning of it; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression most readily taken."  Plato, The Republic

What is "learning"?  In my experience, you have learned something if you can pull it out and use it after you figured it out.  And, to do that, either you have to want to use it or there has to be a really good reason for using it.

How someone learns something is impacted enormously by that character that Plato is talking about.  And, the "wanting to use it" (passion) is born sometime in one's life and the "really good reason" comes about as the fire under all of us that motivates.

Learning to learn means setting the pool right.  I know what that means because I've begun to learn many things later than those young and tender moments.  And, not setting the stage to really believe you can get it means adding a whole mountain of self-doubt to the task.

Maybe my question is too simple because what I am talking about is really LEARNING, not just figuring something out long enough to fill in a bubble sheet.  So, let's focus on "you have learned something if you can pull it out and use it after you figured it out."

I was sitting next to another parent waiting for one of my children to finish a class last year.  I asked what this parent did for a living.  She said, she had been a lawyer and was now a teacher.  I guessed she was an English or Writing teacher.  She said she was a Math teacher.   HHHHhhhhmmmm....

Then she explained,
she wasn't an English or Writing teacher because she had long surpassed trying to explain to a student how to do those things.  She, herself, didn't focus on doing the writing because she had already figured it out and was using it.  But, Math, was something she had struggled with herself as a student.  She could explain it to her students and anticipate the hills they would try to climb when they were learning.



And, she didn't let the fact that she was a lawyer get in the way of knowing her struggles would make her an effective teacher.

I am in a wrestling match with my own passions and learning styles.  I guess I should have majored in Anthropology, and not let learning to use data scare me so much.  Now, I am really beginning to understand the value of backing up observations with hard data.  And, I need to learn how to use Unity to bring my game to life!  Arrrrggghhh...

But, I also have a passionate belief that anyone, any age or background, can learn.  The length that learning goes to depends on their curiosity, motivation or desire.  And, the right fit of what they are learning.

Okay, time to go gaze at this mountain again.