18 January 2009

Attitude in the News

In the aftermath of the disaster-that-wasn't (US Air 1549's Hudson River Landing) Jonah Lehrer explains that it was the Captain's attitude that saved the day and his attitude was a learned response.

'Deliberate Calm' Guided US Air Crew

17 January 2009

My First Movie: Bones of Contention



This is a one day movie. Noah and I decided to make a movie in the early afternoon, outlined a script, and started shooting. We finished shooting that night after dinner and I edited and scored it, finishing up around 2AM. About 13 hours start to finish. Noah was the cinematographer and he happens to be 10 3/4 years old (or so.) The score has been changed because of copyright issues, but the new one is even better.

Kristina, Richard, and the lady at the Joy Luck Chinese Restaurant were very enthusiastic recruits into the process. Kristina created the prop used at the very end, too.

15 January 2009

The Answer to Scams is Trust More not Less

In this article by a leading expert on gullibility (who was taken in by the Madoff Ponzi scheme) comes to the surprising conclusion that the answer to having your trust betrayed is not to trust less, but trust more. Actually, trust more in a diversity of people so that when one of them betrays your trust then you have the strength of all the others to carry you through. The situation of losing one amongst many investments (financial, relational, or otherwise) is a lot less tragic than the situation of losing the only investment you have.

School As Extended Mind

This post at Mind Hacks about the extended mind idea has me thinking about what it means for schools if we accept the premise. When we put children into a new classroom every year then we effectively wipe out their ability to externalize their mind. We cut them off from the possibility of school enabling them to maximize the benefits of externalizing. They know that whatever investment they make in utilizing this year's classroom as a medium for extending their personal capabilities, it will be wiped out at the end of the year.

That's not good.

Are You Aware? Probably not.

This London-based cycling safety campaign is a brilliant demonstration of how unaware we can be.

The Curse of Knowledge in Teaching

This post is an excellent summary of how the curse of knowledge can be a significant obstacle to good teaching.

Understanding The Basis Of Business

I occasionally ruminate on the evolving basis of our economy. If you follow business culture you will know that we have gone through transformations from commodities to goods to services and that a new level is emerging. The following TED Talk by Joseph Pine gives the best explanation I've ever heard or read. And it provides a basic lesson to me as I am about to launch my Attitutor Services Attitude Adjustment Program in Portland.



LINK

14 January 2009

Briefing The President on Attitude in Education

Here is a link to my submission for the Citizen's Briefing book.

The idea is that everyone can submit ideas that we all vote on and the top ideas get included in the presidents daily briefing.

13 January 2009

Windsor House Video Documentary

Here is a short documentary about Windsor House, a democratic school in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

There is one hyperbolic statement that should be corrected:

This is one of hundreds of democratic schools around the globe, and it is not even unique to Canada. If you would like to know where democratic schools are I recommend The Online Directory of Democratic Education.

05 January 2009

03 January 2009

Dan Gilbert on Our Everyday Irrationality and its Global Impact



This lecture from author Dan Gilbert is less than 15 minutes but paints a clear picture of why we humans are not responding to looming global challenges.

02 January 2009

Compassion & Power Study

This brief on the findings of a study that looked for correlations between a person's sense of power and their feelings of compassion has me thinking about what it means.

Are Power and Compassion Mutually Exclusive?"

The answer to the provocative title is no, but having a sense of your own power does seem to correlate with maintaining emotional distance from those who tell you a sob story. This seems to me to be an important validation of a tenet I learned from BJ Dohrmann, the founder of CEOSpace. It goes something like this "Money is attracted to success and repelled by desperation." When making appeals for money or anything else, if you want the attention of the rich and powerful, don't be desperate. The rich and powerful will automatically maintain a distance. When the rich and powerful invest in someone (financially or with their influence) they are looking to increase their success, therefore they are going to be attracted to someone on a path to success. They do have compassion, but in order to get them to access that compassion in your favor you have to appeal to the part of your sob story that they can relate to, the part that is overcoming the difficulty and rising to meet the challenges.

Perspective for the New Year

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” ~ Buddha

Hat Tip to Kandy & Metro Parent

01 January 2009

Sudbury School Video Playlist

Here is a link to a playlist of interviews with a variety of people involved in Sudbury-style schools:


The arrows on the sides let you skip to the previous or next video in the playlist.

Playlist Link just in case you want to be able to skip around.

There are 27 parts in the list. For those who are unfamiliar with Sudbury it is a much replicated model of democratic education.