Servant Leadership

Leaders perhaps operate best when they seek to serve the needs of the people who serve the organization. In my view, one must take care to facilitate the growth and development of one’s employees, as it is one’s employees who are the face of the organization.

Servant leadership is built on the solid foundation of transformation, seeking to evolve the others into leaders as well. A servant leader is one whom operates guided by an internal compass of ethical judgment. Greenleaf spoke of servant leaders as being characterized by virtuous distinction. “A servant leader’s ability to lead with integrity depends on his or her skills for withdrawal and action, listening and persuasion, practical goal setting and intuitive prescience. The focus is on goals, success, learning, and assisting”. (Cunningham, Cordeiro ,1999,pg.196).

As an educator, one makes a choice to facilitate the growth of others. The choice to educate is the choice to serve, a characteristic found within the paradigm of the servant leader (Greenleaf,1977).



References:

Cunningham, W. G., & Cordeiro, P. A. (1999). Educational Leadership: A
Problem-Based Approach (2nd ed.). New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Sendjaya,S. ,Sarros,J.(2002).Servant Leadership: Its Origins, Development,
and Application in Organizations. Journal of Leadership &
Organizational Studies,9(2),57-64.

Contemplation

Is it not the way if it is difficult? Is it not the truth if it is painful? For if the way is wide and the road easy does this manifest truth? One must think on these things when weighing the gravity of one’s choices.


Excerpt from: A Chinese Kid Named Santiago

Building Efficacy

Seperation of the Person and the Experience

In striving to learn new things one may encounter learning experiences in the form of failed attempts and setbacks. This is a natural occurrence as all achievements were first met with many unsuccessful attempts. In handling disappointment one must resist the temptation to internalize the experience.

You are separate from the circumstances which befall you. To truly understand this division enables one to withstand the growing pangs of growth and knowledge acquisition. One's worth as a person is not attached to an outcome, but rather to internal attributes.

The search for meaning and purpose in life is one of the major driving forces within the lives of individuals from all ages and eras. The search for uniqueness and of individuality leads one down the path of self-discovery. The process of self-discovery encompasses the trials of reflection and introspection, seeking to truly understand oneself amidst the backdrop of life and one’s internal experience.



Implied within the path of self-understanding is that for one to be truly faithful to the journey one would be required to evolve into a leader. Acknowledging one’s gifts is also an acknowledgment of their benefit to the world at large. Exercising one’s talent with conviction is also an exercise of one’s capacity for leadership. Assuming responsibility for one’s expression in the world and its impact upon self and others is a tremendous step down the path of leadership.

Sayings of Krishnamurti

Self-knowledge is not a thing to be bought in books, nor is it the outcome of a long painful practice and discipline, but it is awareness, from moment to moment, of every thought and feeling as it arises in relationship. Relationship is not on an abstract, ideological level but an actuality—the relationship with property, with people, and with ideas. Relationship implies existence and, as nothing can live in isolation, to be is to be related.

Our conflict is in relationship, at all the levels of our existence and the understanding of this relationship, completely and extensively, is the only real problem that each one has. This problem cannot be postponed nor be evaded. The avoidance of it only creates further conflict and misery; the escape from it only brings about thoughtlessness, which is exploited by the crafty and the ambitious.

My Thoughts on Vision

All great things endeavors, triumphs and victories start with a dream, a vision. What has stood out to me most in recent days has been just how important one’s vision is to achieving one’s goal. Fidelity of purpose and clear articulation of goals have been of the utmost importance to me as of late.

What I have found is that within articulation of purpose one will find the means by which success can be had. Clarity of vision, leads to clarity of means; an understanding of how something can be accomplished is dependent upon acknowledging a destination. I have come to understand to understand that clarity of vision is how the machinery behind the dream is built.

Time Management

Time is precious. How are you using it? Take a day to monitor how you spend your time. Write down everything you do, including dressing, eating, travel, relaxing in front of the TV, shopping for groceries, running to the library, picking up from the soccer practice. If you organize these tasks effectively, you may be amazed at how much available time you have.

As a student, it is helpful to look at your time management at TWO LEVELS.
A LONG TERM PLANNER helps you to see the BIG PICTURE of what you have to get done. Start with the big assignments, quizzes and exams. Use a monthly calendar and fill these in first.


Now, working backwards, fill in some preparation times which you will need in order to be ready for the big days.

Practices from Spiritual Direction that Deepen Civic Engagement

JoAnn Campbell, Minnesota Campus Compact

Journal of College & Character VOLUME VIII, NO. 1, November 2006

Students can benefit spiritually from their work in civic engagement and service learning if encouraged to appreciate the mystery involved in every human interaction, especially with people different from themselves. The ancient art of spiritual direction offers practices that can deepen reflection and integrate service activities with the students’ values and lived experiences.

The 2004 UCLA Higher Education Research Institute’s study of College Students’ Beliefs and Values found that 75% of current college students are "searching for meaning/purpose" in their lives (4). The principal authors, Alexander and Helen Astin, write that "higher education represents a critical focal point for responding to the question of how to balance the exterior and interior aspects of life more effectively" (iii).

I want to suggest that a key strategy for helping students balance the exterior and the interior is reflection, and that the act of reflecting can be strengthened or made more potent and powerful by borrowing techniques, stances, and practices from spiritual direction.

Building Efficacy
Conditions of Learning (R. Gagne)
tip.psychology.org

This theory stipulates that there are several different types or levels of learning. The significance of these classifications is that each different type requires different types of instruction. Gagne identifies five major categories of learning: verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills and attitudes.

Different internal and external conditions are necessary for each type of learning. For example, for cognitive strategies to be learned, there must be a chance to practice developing new solutions to problems; to learn attitudes, the learner must be exposed to a credible role model or persuasive arguments.

Gagne suggests that learning tasks for intellectual skills can be organized in a hierarchy according to complexity: stimulus recognition, response generation, procedure following, use of terminology, discriminations, concept formation, rule application, and problem solving. The primary significance of the hierarchy is to identify prerequisites that should be completed to facilitate learning at each level. Prerequisites are identified by doing a task analysis of a learning/training task. Learning hierarchies provide a basis for the sequencing of instruction.

Learning is Power: The transformation of adult learners through education

Tech Teacher: Cut Through the Web Noise
RSS feeds help sort out the new from the mold.

by Geoff Butterfield

edutopia.org

published 6/19/2007

One problem with the Web: It's too darn big. Who has time to keep up with its immeasureable updates? You could spend all day trolling around online, looking for the freshest headlines and content on your favorite sites. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way of gathering all the new things on frequently updated sites (like blogs, news feeds, or podcasts) and sending them out to you?

Hang onto your cowboy hat, because that's where Real Simple Syndication (RSS) comes in. Odds are you've seen the little orange button with either the letters RSS or XML, or sometimes a little radar-looking symbol, on at least one of your favorite Web sites (like, for instance, the Edutopia.org RSS Feed). The button means that the Web site offers its content as an RSS "feed," which is simply a list of new articles, usually with just a title and a short description. The little button is a link to that feed.

Subscribe to these feeds and these sites will get in contact with you electronically when they offer new content.

Authors@Google: Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman discusses his book "Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships" as a part of the Authors@Google series.

An E-lightened Moment
Realities and Illusions

Move past setback and illusion of futility. This is not you....

You are a manifestation of your greatest reality. Fear no challenge, worthy of it all, challenges befall in order to prepare. For where else can the mettle in one's core be found?

Profound thoughts arise out of feeling of deficit. Success is always held at the cusp of defeat. Find yourself striving among turmoil and activity concerned not with possibility of fatality.

For the lessons of the path have always been the prize.

-R.L Adams

Teachers who get police training could get extra pay, carry guns
By Emily Richmond Las Vegas Sun

A proposal that Nevada teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons garnered a lot of notoriety but little traction among state lawmakers this year. Now comes this idea: Give bonus pay to teachers - from kindergarten to college - who would be trained and armed as reserve school police officers.

Faculty-turned-campus cops would supplement the thin ranks of campus police and be in position to respond quickly to campus emergencies, the two champions of the idea say.
Others worry about allowing teachers to be put in that kind of position.

4 Steps to Conquer
Sixth entry

“There are three kinds of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.”

-Unknown

Be one of the brave souls that face the realities of the world
with determination and fortitude.

Be one of the spirits that change their world for the better,
through actions and investment of one’s time.

Beware of contentment and apathy, for tragedies the world
over have been caused by their mingling in the affairs of
people.

The Power of Imagery

mindtools.com

Imagery is the process by which you can create, modify or strengthen pathways important to the co-ordination of your muscles, by training purely within your mind. Imagination is the driving force of imagery.

Imagery rests on the important principle that you can exercise these parts of your brain with inputs from your imagination rather that from your senses: the parts of the brain that you train with imagery experience imagined and real inputs similarly, with the real inputs being merely more vividly experienced. So in its least effective form you can use imagery merely as a substitute for real practice to train the parts of your mind that it can reach.

Even at this inferior level of use imagery is useful training where:

An athlete is injured, and cannot train in any other way.
The correct equipment is not available, or practice is not possible for some other reason
Where rapid practice is needed However just to use imagery for the reasons above is to undervalue its effectiveness grossly.

A Friendly Workplace Makes for Healthy Employees

Employees that are liked and in turn like their colleagues are happier and healthier, according to a new study. The survey of over 5,000 staff on behalf of SkillsSoft found that half said working with people they like is important whilst 41% said having this reciprocated scores almost as highly. Mutual adoration between colleagues is not the only relationship that scores well – 'getting on well with the boss' featured as critical for 34.8%.

Taking time out also ranked highly, 49% referred to flexible working hours as important, with 46% placing sufficient annual leave as a key contributor to well-being.
The value of good relationships with work colleagues was also evident when employees were asked who they would talk to first within their organisation if they were unhappy at work.

Over a third (36.3%) would consult a colleague whilst a further 29.2% would prefer to confide in their direct manager or supervisor. However, only 2.4% would speak to their HR department. Worryingly 17.3% claimed they would stay silent and keep their anxieties to themselves.

Systems vs. Freedom
Educational Implications?

Community college
By COLLEEN MAXWELLThe State News

NICK DENTAMARO · The State News

Kelly Dubiel signs "mother" at the Lansing Community College Library on Wednesday. Dubiel started her college career at LCC and fell in love with American Sign Language, or ASL, and deaf education. She then transferred to MSU to get her degree, simultaneously taking ASL classes during the spring semester at LCC. Her interest in sign language began early on in her life when her aunt's friend would show Dubiel flash cards from her ASL Interpreter Training Program.

Community colleges aren't just used as a stepladder into universities anymore.
Michigan's first two-year college, Grand Rapids Junior College, opened in 1914 with the intention of giving students a way to make an easier transition from high school to a university.
Ninety-three years later, 27 more public community colleges have opened in Michigan - from Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba, to Monroe County Community College in Monroe - and MSU students are taking full advantage.

Get Inspired
'InSpire' magazine started by former FSU associate dean launches this summer
Liz Cox
Issue date: 6/11/07 Section: News

After eight years of researching with his graduate students, Lee Jones, a former Florida State University associate dean in the College of Education, found that there was an opening in the magazine industry for the inspirational and motivational market, and he created InSpire, a new national magazine aimed at sharing the motivational and inspiring stories of "everyday people.""I decided to start (the magazine) because when I looked around at what was happening in the world, I really felt that I had to look internally to see what I was doing to try to help ease the emotional pain and strife that people go through everyday as a result of looking at what was happening in the world," Jones said. "I thought that an inspirational magazine would help with achieving that goal."