MAC Week 4 Comments: Marquita Gully

Week 4 Blog Post

Chapter 9

Enrollment. Wow.  Creating that spark.  I honestly hope that when people meet me they feel the spark of life that I try so hard to give off.  Enrollment is being positive so that others pick up your positivity.  It is like how my family portrays blessings. When someone you know has received a blessing just know that yours is right around the corner. Be happy for people and be positive.  Influence others to want to be positive as well. Spark a light is someone so they can spark a light in someone else.

Chapter 10

The board.  Having the option to change the course of action before it occurs. Instead of placing the blame on someone else, be responsible to take the blame yourself.  Even if you know it is not your fault you could still have some fault.  Now that I think about it, there are some situations where the blame could have been on me.

Chapter 11

The Framework.  Making ways better for everyone. I really enjoyed the story about the second grade student that lost her hair from chemotherapy. Her classmates picked on her and she did not want to go to school the next day.  The framework is all about bringing people together with no divisions. Also, we have to be able to see the true vision and not just state false ones.  A vision could change how someone feels about an idea.

Chapter 12

WE!!!! Instead of looking at the world as if it only affects you, think of things in the perspective of how it impacts all of those around you.  That is so powerful because quite frequently we have thought that our worlds were so bad but we never really take to time to look at the world through the eyes of some who is really going through things.  There are so many people that do not have job, have been diagnosed with cancer, who are innocent in jail.  We sometimes seem to get upset about the crazy stuff and forget there are bigger issues in the world.  Look at how you can make the world better instead of how the world can be so hard on you!!

                                                                                                                             

Mac Week 4 Comments: Joe Hudson

MAC Week 4-1: Reading Post

Chapter Nine (Lighting A Spark) was a very interesting read. I would have to agree with the authors that each person has within them a “spark of possibility”. Our job is to have the capability and mindset to have other people’s spark catch fire. As it is put in the book, the way to do this is:

1.     Imagine that people are an invitation for enrollment

2.     Stand ready to participate, willing to be moved and inspired

3.     Offer that which lights you up

4.     Have no doubt that others are eager to catch the spark

What this is saying is that you must believe that each person has the possibility for greatness, be ready yourself to inspire, show what excites you, and believe that others WANT to be inspired!

Chapter Ten (Being The Board) talks about changes the aspects of life into your favor. Don’t play the blame game on other people, but look at the aspects behind the situation and figure out a way to change it. The reason behind this is because the minute you place the blame elsewhere, you lose your ability to have a say in the outcome. It is out of your hands. To do quote the Andrew Lloyd Webber music “Jesus Christ Superstar”: PONTIOUS PILATE: I wash my hands of your demolition.

Chapter Eleven (Creating Frameworks For Possibility) discusses the fact that things may appear to be going in a downward spiral, but each one of us has the opportunity or ability to change that in three simple steps:

1.     Create a feeling of substitution for this downward spiral

2.     Make the effort of making the new philosophy everything

3.     Keep track of what is going right and what is going wrong

This is a great philosophy, because if you do not make the effort to change things around you and make that your goal….nothing will change for you.

Chapter Twelve (Telling The WE Story) discusses the WE story. The WE story to me is very similar to the six degrees of separation. The WE story says you must:

1.     Tell the story that relates to all

2.     Listen and look for the rising person or things around you

3.     Ask yourself “where do WE go from here?”

What a concept! We are all connected, all we have to do is look around us for someone or something else to join us and figure out where to go to make everything better TOGETHER!

MAC Week 4 Leadership

In our closing Wimba session last night with Jason I briefly discussed why I opted for publication verses presentation. I really would like to make a presentation out of my CBR but after bringing all of my presentable content over to a document format I realized that I would have to create a manuscript before I could create a presentation. Therefore, I've opted to go for publication to the MTNA e-Journal listed below. I chose this e-Journal because it relates to my topic of Community and Musical Intelligence, and because the journal allows for the use of multimedia (jpeg, mp3, and flv) along with the published manuscript.

MTNA e-Journal

Leadership Blog Posts

MAC Leadership 1: Steven Hawking
MAC Week 2 Leadership: Publication or Presentation...
MAC Week 3 Leadership

Fostering Community and Musical Intelligence: A Challenge Based Research Project

Leadership 1 doc

MAC Week 4 Reading: 9-12

A wise saying from father to a son.

Standing in the center of radiating possibility.

This next block of text was probably my favorite in the last four chapters, I can almost picture Mr. Zander on his bike trying to get to the museum. The first four statements are all about the kind of attitude one needs to maintain to keep the following paragraphs alive as radiating possibility.

In reading about "being the board itself" it felt very natural to associate it to the notion of "one button playing", in which a player becomes aware to the point that they are not playing with emphasis on one note to the next, but instead are able to play with emphasis on entire phrases and untimely the entire piece.

An uplifting thought from Nelson Mandela

"We practice" is a dive into interpersonal relationships and diplomacy at large.

This was a great book, so many little treasures lie within. 

I'll be recommending to many of my friends and family.

MAC Week 3 Leadership

It looks like I will be shooting for publication after all. I really didn't find any conferences accepting submissions in the allotted time frame. And, I honestly really like the sound of the MTNA e-Journal listed below. It allows for multimedia in the publication and that is a must for my CBR. Jpeg's, mp3's, and flv files can be submitted along with the manuscript. The MTNA e-Journal is my first choice, and the American Music Teacher is my second.

MTNA e-Journal

American Music Teacher

MAC Week 3 Comments: Derek Gualandri

MAC WEEK 3 Reading Ch. 5-8 Art of Possibility

Rule number six according to Zander from the book Art of Possibilities.

The Art of Possibility

Ch. 5 Lead from any Chair

Leading from any chair is what teachers do every day. We take the lead role yet try to give others the opportunity to be the leader. We guide young people to be independent and to be in charge of smaller groups.  In high school, students are not always ready to be a leader and they need to mature in to the leadership role. I have heard of studying that says there are 7 billion people that walk the face of the earth and only 2% of these people are LEADERS.  So if my math does not fail me, that is 2 people out of every 100 people hence 2 %.  So, 1 person out of 50 is a leader. Truly that is not a lot of people; so to be ready to lead from any seat sometimes can become very challenging.  Sometimes leaders can become so confident that they think they are on top of the world, yet little do they know they can be replaced.  Like the old entertainment quote states when something goes wrong, or the leader cannot lead that “the show must go on.”   

This excerpt from the book says it all too. “Yet in the music business, as in all walks of life, a leader who feels he is superior is likely to suppress the voices of the people on whom he must rely to deliver his vision alive and kicking.” Zander says this statement with such veracity. Many leaders do not always know they are suppressing the voices of their colleagues.

Ch. 6 Rule number 6

“ Don’t take yourself so goddam seriously.” This is the best Chapter in this section of the book. Sometimes people are way too serious.  In the teaching world, teachers can be a bit to much as well. A teacher friend of mind stated to me one day that, “ Children don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  This quote says it all and has a strong correlation to the not taking yourself so seriously. In order to be successful, you have to be having fun. If you are acting way to serious, then most of the time you are not having any fun. The key to this concept is to have FUN…. Seriously you can’t be serious."

Ch. 7 the way things are

In this chapter a light bulb in my head went off that reminded me of a quote I once heard. The quote said, “ Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Randy Pausch from the Last lecture.  A good friend of mine always says,” It is what it is.” These two quotes explain exactly what Zander was trying to convey to his audience or at least that is what I got out of it. Abraham Lincoln failed over 80 times before he became  very successful. Perseverance is the name of the game learning along the way and making those mistakes that will make us much stronger. I love the quote about ADVERSITY! “ Adversity, if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger.”  I try to covey these life’s little lessons daily to my student. I let them know I am human and will make a mistake.  I teach them it is ok to make mistake, yet they must learn from the mistake. 

Ch. 8 giving way to passion

I tell my students these same messages everyday about LIFE. Do what you love, and Love what you do and you too will be successful?  Be passionate about what drives you. Be passionate on what motivates you. Passionate about who you are and passionate for what you believe in. If your passionate and you give way to it. Passion will lead you to a good place. A place that makes you feel great, as a person and that will lift up your spirits.  More over the reading of this book has been awesome for me, and it has given way to passion. Once again, Zander has captured me in his book. I will probably read this book again and again. I can't wait. 
To be continued---

Comments to Derek


Well I looks like I commented on Marquita's blog about the Batman quote, sorry my mistake, but it was a great illustration of #6.
Ill see if I can get it right this time, lol.
Anyway, I agree #6 was the best section of this reading. Its a simple concept but can be truly difficult to keep up with the trials of day to day life. That is why short sweet reminders are perfect to keep the concept in out sometimes all important heads.   And this quote btw is great... "Children don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

MAC Week 3 Comments: Kate Caraway

Week 3 Reading: Seeing Again

Filed under: Uncategorized — 2 Comments

January 21, 2012

Favorite Ideas:

“My job is to awaken possibility in other people.”

“Any interaction between two human beings is always a matter of leadership. Giving all people the chance to live in possibility.”

 Chapter 5. Leading from Any Chair

Anyone want to send a random email to my new boss with this chapter enclosed? Kidding of course.  It is always so much easier to see the mistakes someone else is making. This chapter reminds me that even though I am not in charge, I can still help direct the way people view the situation. Favorite quote of this chapter, “Things can change when you care enough to grab whatever you love, and give it everything.” I think I get the message I need to hear, even though I really don’t want to.

 Chapter 6. Rule Number 6: Don’t take yourself so seriously.

It is not easy. Darn. This ties back to the first rule. An emergency is only an emergency if it is imagined that way. Granted, there are emergency, but there have been few in my daily life to warrant complete panic. I often find myself saying, “Worse things have happened. No really; just the other day…” Working with elementary and middle school kids, you develop an appreciation of this rule. To them, everything is an emergency. One time a student stood up in the middle of a lesson and yelled, “My pencil broke!” I jumped up and started running around yelling, “Ahhhhhh!” The pencil breaker said, “Oh.” We all laughed and moved on with the day. It is so much easier to accept what happens instead of fighting it. If only I could remember this…

Chapter 7. The Way Things Are

I have been trying to take this view at work. Trying really hard. I don’t know how many times I have said, “It is what it is.” I just missed the part where I should add, “Where do we go from here.” Here’s an idea, “Anywhere…but here.” Hehe! I say that making the best of a bad situation is the best path. I am there for the kids, not someone’s 45-minute judgment of my job performance. What makes me think this single document is going to dictate the teacher I am? Why do I have to settle for someone else’s opinion of me? Mainly so I can keep my job. Kidding. Here’s to traversing the ice as though it is a friendly surface. We were on vacation one summer on the coast and we kept seeing this snake crawl under the siding above the door to our condo. We had a maintenance man come down and after we described the problem, said “Uh.” That was it. He turned and walked off. Since then, anytime anyone has an issue in our family, we give the wisdom of the maintenance man. Zander talks about using, “How fascinating!” That is my new “Uh.”

 In this chapter, I am shaken by the description of the long line. How many times have I had that kind of experience in my life? Too many to count. When working at camp in the summer, an experience everyone should have, it so easy to get caught in the details. We have the same kids and counselors for a month. All of the necessities are provided without any thought. The kitchen makes the food, then ladies clean the office, the town runner gets the pens, the nurse finds the medicine, and the kids grow. My first summer at camp was really a jumping off point for me. Looking back on the drive there, I saw the glimpse of my future. It was this singular moment that kept me driving. I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t have any idea about how this organization steeped in tradition worked. I had a schedule. I could see when we were supposed to have nourishment, Waldemar for snack time, when dinner was supposed to happen, and when Taps was to play every night. But I couldn’t wrap my mind around 321 people living on 300 acres and 7 kids and me in a one room, one bath cabin were going to not kill each other. We wore whites on Sundays. There were ladies there that had been coming to camp for over 50 consecutive summers. The woman that started the camp was told that women couldn’t do that, it wasn’t a woman’s work, a woman had no place in the middle of nowhere without a man to help with the horses and skunks. However, Ora Johnson could see the long line. She had the vision to follow her passion and forge her own path. I am remembering why I had the respect I did.

I can tell you that from my time there, my resume exploded. The day-to-day life of camp shifted my view of the world. It was one instance family and community became whatever I wanted it to be. The first day of orientation the director always said, “Today is the day. You get to be the best you you can be. You get to decide where the future is going to take you. You get to invent who you are and no one here will know the difference.” At that point in my life I needed that; I have never felt like I was where I was supposed to be more than at the end of that first summer. Everyone else was so happy to be finished with the summer. I cried. I still cry when I think about that.

As the years past and I started moving up the ladder there, it lost some of its mystery. Suddenly, I was worried about the evening activity and working out how 321 girls would have a field day activity in the first 4 hours of the day. One lady, SueSue, I worked with was just straight up. I couldn’t figure out how to write the names in the “bible.” It documented every girl at camp and their accomplishments and their final camp score. I went to SueSue and said, “This is probably a stupid question, but how do I…” She turned to me after I finished and said, “That is a stupid question.” That was it. I loved it.

Taking what I can from this chapter, I want to see the big picture again. I want that purpose and calm direction again. It was so wonderful to feel like I was where I was supposed to be. But, it must always be like that. If it wasn’t, it would mean that God made a mistake today, and that doesn’t happen. I am where I am supposed to be, and I will open myself up for the energy to flow through.

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AdamV

January 22, 2012 at 5:48 pm

Great stories Kate, Its been interesting to see how reading this book seems to get people to tap into memories, feelings and parts of themselves that they may have forgotten but needed to be reminded of. I know I’ve said this before, and I’ve even seen pictures, but that camp of yours sounds like a great place. All the time you put in there transcends the singular individual experiences you had when you are able to share your stories with all of us, and when you do those good times can happen all over again. I hope you can always remember it as source for “purpose and clam direction”.