MSP: Second Class Requirements 3, 6c

3.  Participate in a flag ceremony for your school, religious institution, chartered organization, community, or troop activity.

I started our weekly family home evening this week with one of the younger kids helping me unfold the flag, which we then all saluted as I led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Another little kid helped me fold it back up. 

6c.  Demonstrate first aid for the following:

- Object in the eye

- Bite of a suspected rabid animal

- Puncture wounds from a splinter, nail, and fish hook

- Serious burns (partial thickness, or second degree)

- Heat exhaustion

- Shock

- Heatstroke, dehydration, hypothermia, and hyperventilation

We went through each of these in the handbook as a family, discussing bad advice/outdated methods that we had heard in the past for first aid.  We acted out the handbook’s methods and then had a quick oral quiz.  This is the kind of thing that we think is fun.  My family is awesome. 

Lest you think that October has been fairly unproductive for me, let me assure you that progress is being made.  I have dates set for camping and a service project in November.  I just got a book from the library about local animal life, and a DVD is on hold about drug abuse.  I’ll relate the stories of how each one goes as they come up in the next few weeks.

New (School) Year’s Resolutions

On this eve of yet another glorious year of teaching, I want to set three goals for myself to improve my work.  After reflecting on what my strengths and weaknesses are, and what I want to achieve, I’ve settled on these basics:

1.  More time for independent readings in class.  Each quarter will start with a good book chosen by each student from my lists, and I’ll set aside a couple of class days to read and take notes and/or fill out a log.  After that, they might bring in their own stuff for a few more days of reading here and there.  We read plenty in my classes, but it’s usually from the textbook, with most of their other reading being done on their own.  That doesn’t cut it.  This will pack in more quantity of reading, which kids desperately need.

2.  Speaking of desperate needs, we’ll do more short, spontaneous compositions with instant editing and feedback.  I always want to do more of this, but never get around to it, and it’s so essential.  Quick writing workshops with paragraph-or-two compositions that they’ll peer edit / I’ll edit and they revise in another quick draft, all in one day.  This will benefit their mechanics better than enything else I can think of.  This must be done every other week, at least. 

3.  Finally, I’ll be nicer.  Not in class, I mean, where if anything I should be more strict and where my ability to act enthusiastic when “on stage” serves me well, but outside of class, when kids come in for help or make up work, or when I see kids outside of school.  As it is, my painfully shy, introverted side takes over there and I tend to mumble dismissive one liners and look the other way.  As much as I hate to admit it, a more engaging personality from me does improve classroom performance for them, so here’s one to work on…

Six Summer Goals Achieved

You know how you always look forward to time off, and make grandiose plans for sucking the marrow out of every second, and then when the time finally comes you invariably squander it?  I do that constantly, but summer is the worst.  This year I decided to break down some of my larger goals and focus on making small progress on some of them. 

On May 22, I wrote a list of 27 things to do this summer.  I gave myself until the last day before I would go back to work–August 18–to do them.  Now, two of them were very poorly planned, so I really had 25 things to do. 

Out of those 25, I did 6.  A few others were close or in progress, but only 6 can be confidently checked off. 

Still, sadly, that makes this my most productive summer ever.

Here are the six things I did:

Reviewed: Stephen Covey’s 8th Habit Lecture

I’m a 7 Habits guy.  Though it’s been about eight years since I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, its impact on me has been indelible.  For the first couple of years after reading it, in fact, I would stop myself before starting many activities and ask myself, “Wait, is this really a quadrant two activity?” 

So I was excited about the release of The 8th Habit, which I’ve checked out of the library a few times…but haven’t really been able to get into.  A few weeks ago I saw that Covey had recorded a lecture of himself teaching the 8th habit to an audience, so I checked that out, hoping a visual abbreviation would help me get the gist of it.  Even better, the version that I picked up had an audio version on CD, and since my time to listen to things in the car is far more substantial than the time I might find to watch things at home, I cheerfully popped the CD into my car and listened to the whole thing in one day. 

It.  Was.  Terrible.  The whole presentation reeks of touchy-feely affirmations with vague, watery, new-agey platitudes that have little utilitarian value.  What I’ve always liked about the 7 Habits (and I presume what millions of others also appreciate) is its practical, down-to-earth applicability.  This one comes across as a whole lot of bloviating puff about some simple, obvious concepts (“serve and inspire others”), some of which are already well defined in the original 7 habits (“set goals”).  This 48 minute lecture of weak fluff is supposed to represent the essentials of the 8th habit?  This does not do anything for my desire to finish the book. 

I’ll be proactively shunning this waste of time for the foreseeable future.  If anyone wants to defend the 8th habit book, please do–I’d hate for my opinion of Covey’s work to be so sullied as it is by this embarrassing tripe.

 

Final Grade: D

25 Random Things About Me

My misgivings about online social networking aside, I’m a fan of the whole “25 random things” phenom that’s going around.  I recently read a few over at Terry Teachout’s blog, and really enjoyed it.  These aren’t about getting to know anyone really deeply (or pretending to), it’s just fun trivia.  It’s neat to see what weird stuff people come up with to say. 

And since I’m far too anti-social to get any of these invites myself, I’ll offer my own list just for kicks and giggles:

1. I could never swallow a pill before I was 18.
2. I’ve given blood over 60 times.
3. My biggest regret in life is that I never dated an Asian girl.  Oh well.
4. I’m a classic absent-minded professor.  Once, driving north to Salt Lake City, I saw the road sign that promised, “Salt Lake City: next 5 exits.”  My mind cheerfully drifted off until a while had passed and I started to wonder why I hadn’t seen the exits yet.  As soon as I thought that, I saw another sign: “Ogden: next exit.”  Ogden is more than forty miles north of Salt Lake.  Yes, somehow I had managed to drive all the way through a state capital–and far beyond–without noticing. 
5. I’m deaf in my left ear.  Complete nerve damage from a birth defect. 
6. Someday I’m going to write the Great American Novel.
7. My favorite meal growing up was this tuna casserole my mom made. 
8. I’m the same age as Bart Simpson: when The Simpsons premiered as a short animated skit on the Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, Bart was (as he is now) ten years old.  I was also ten that year.  I sometimes wonder what a 31-year-old Bart Simpson would be like…

Schedule of Activities to Reach Goals

As I mentioned in a post earlier today, I have a schedule of activities that I use to help me achieve goals.  I started in 2001 by having a “to-do” list of New Year’s resolutions, but since then it’s evolved to be specific and focused on practical planning and activities to reach those goals.  I’ve used the format below for the last three years. 

It’s really more of an ideal than a practical record of how I actually use my time, as I fall very short of consistently doing many of these things.  For example, for about two years my early weekday mornings really did look like this, but I got out of the habit last year and am still trying to get back in.  I’ve done better with the weekend planning than at first, but it’s still not a habit.  I try to view goals and resolutions as things to develop over time by a process, rather than a monolithic thing that I’ll “start doing” on a certain day, anyway.  It helps me avoid burnout.

My schedule is based on two things: my life list at 43 Things.com, and my patriarchal blessing.  (I once went through my patriarchal blessing and made a list of all the things that I could glean from it that might be beneficial for me to work on, yielding a lifetime “to-do” list of 15 items.)  This year, I specifically noted on my schedule which items from those lists each of my goals is meant to develop, with the intent that it will help me keep those long-term goals in mind and stay motivated. 

Here it is:

 

Progress Report On Goals

Yesterday was one year since setting up my “bucket list” at 43 Things.  I haven’t reported in a while, so I just did.  At the end of last June, I named goals 1,2,3,5,7,8,11,17,27,34, and 36 as my priorities, and I updated each.  I also added information for 12,14,15,21,31, and 35.

Overall, progress is slow.  I have done some work to move a few of the things forward, but not enough to be significant in anything.  Where’s my passion?

It occurs to me that, as I mention it in a few of my updates, I have a great schedule correlating all my goals with activities and routines set in place to achieve them.  I should put some of that up here. 

For those not inclined to go through and read my progress reports on any individual goal, here’s the list itself:

1. Make detailed notes on the character and ministry of Jesus Christ from the Bible and Book of Mormon, and work on imitating every one

 

 2. Collect a family history, and do all temple work for at least ten generations back

 

 3. Share the gospel with 100 people a year

 

 4. Study each of the Teachings of Presidents of the Church manuals cover to cover

 

 5. Make a habit of reaching out to people in service and appreciation

My “bucket list”

I recently came across the fun web site 43things.com.  It inspired me to work out my own list of life-long goals.  Like this blog, I’m hoping it pushes me to do more with myself.  Check out my list, with some updates: http://www.43things.com/person/Huston

This reminds me of the huge, impressive life list by John Goddard, the adventurer who, at 15, wrote a list of over a hundred things and worked on nearly all of them overt the next several decades.  I love this list: http://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm

If anyone makes a list of their own, let me know so I can cheer you on!