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Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #2, Edition #2

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Here’s hoping that you enjoyed last week’s return of the Start the Weekend Right Link Series. And just like last week I’ve got a bunch of great links for you to consider to begin this weekend with all of the knowledge that you need to know and, of course, to spread around to your friends. Just think, you’ll be the most impressive person at this weekend’s BBQ or football game because your mind will be packed full of the great content that I have to share with you today!

Granted, you’ll have to read these links in order to be the one with all of the knowledge. But today is Friday and you’ve worked hard all week – so kick back, relax, and fill your mind with some good reading.

Before we get to the links this week I again recommend signing up for a free Feedly account. I get absolutely no kickback for promoting Feedly, but I’m so appreciative of their product being the best RSS reader on the market that I encourage everyone to use it. If you’re using another RSS aggregator, please consider following JerseySmarts.com at http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/. If you’re already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here. And away we go!

The Downfall of Being A Cool Kid, Be Great Daily
Back in January 2003, I was a college senior who just rolled off of two straight years of being the President of my fraternity. During those two years we did a lot of really great, transformational things to help improve the chapter and all of that experience was floating around my head needing an outlet. Our volunteer regional director decided to host a regional development workshop for the undergraduates from around New Jersey right at my home chapter and he asked me to speak. One of the major points in my presentation during that workshop was the concept that is covered in this article. My spin on it was that members of our fraternity shouldn’t try to be the “cool” kid in the chapter; they should strive to be the most active, productive member of the chapter! Give this article a read – I love the message!

The “Perfect” Salary for Happiness, by State, Lifehacker
You may remember a long while ago when I wrote about the Princeton University study suggesting that an income of $75,000 was all that was needed to be happy. The study suggested that after you earn $75,000 per year, earning more money doesn’t necessarily add more happiness. Well, that study has now been adjusted on a state-by-state level and, as the rest of my fellow New Jerseyans already know, everything is more expensive in New Jersey. In the great Garden State, our “happiness” number is $95,700 per year… so get to work, everyone!

Cash, Wall Street Playboys
In keeping with the theme of money, the guys over at Wall Street Playboys put together a great article about how you should view cash. There’s even a short guest appearance by the Oracle himself, Warren Buffet. In particular, I like their perspective on cash flow being king and time equaling money.

How Do We Fix the Ivy League?, The American Conservative
Those of you who are not involved in education may not be aware that grade school, high school, and college classes all started this week. In recognition of the college classes starting this week I’m posting this link which I found incredibly thought-provoking. The American Conservative looks at what the problem is with the Ivy League admissions process and proposes some suggestions to improve the system. If you have an interest in higher education and truly finding ways to improve the system for coming generations, then I think you want to read this article.

Journalists Misunderstanding What “Literally” Means, Patriactionary
This one is short and sweet. The writer of Patriactionary points out a journalistic mistake that makes this English major shake his head in exasperation.

A Morning in the Life of Victor Pride (Video), Bold & Determined
I read a small group of optimistic, empowering websites that focus on giving young men the type of inspiration that they need to become their best selves. One of my favorite sites in this group is Bold & Determined and I think that this short video and the accompanying commentary are a great example why I rank this site so highly on my list. I encourage everyone, especially the younger guys who might be reading this series, to check out Bold & Determined.

Four Ways to Spot a Great Teacher, The Wall Street Journal
This is a great article. With school back in session this week I’ve noticed some of the New Jersey-centric online newspapers publishing their all-too-common anti-education reform bashing articles. In fact, one of them posted an op-ed from a far left professor who bashed all of the reform movements that are popular in New Jersey (popular because they work) and the guy didn’t give a single fact to back his perspective. Not one fact. Talking about good, high quality education in New Jersey can be very frustrating, but this article attempts to get to the core of the issue. What makes a good teacher great? This article gives four great indicators of a great teacher.

The Healing: Victim of Brutal Beating Meets Attacker 25 Years Later, The Saturday Evening Post
This article starts out with a guy recounting how he was tossed out of his home as a kid for coming out as gay. He then talks about being homeless before he tells a story about nearly being beaten to death. Of course, this wouldn’t be something for The Saturday Evening Post to publish unless there was a newsworthy twist. And that twist is that the guy who was nearly killed coincidentally wound up meeting – and working with – the guy who perpetrated the attack. While I wasn’t as moved by this article as I’m sure some folks were when they read it, I was interested enough in the story and the weird way that coincidences tend to work out to share the link here for your consideration.

Before you go, I want to recommend one more time that you consider opening a free Feedly account. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #2, Edition #1

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After a nearly 8 month absence, I’ve decided to bring back the Start the Weekend Right Link Series. There’s just too much awesome content that I run across on a daily basis for me not to share these links. On the topic of there being so much great content out there, if you find yourself visiting several websites each day and you’re looking for a better way to stay up to date on all of your favorite websites’ new articles, then I recommend signing up for a free Feedly account. I don’t get any kickback or reimbursement for promoting their product; I just think Feedly is the best RSS reader on the market and that everyone should use it! If you’re using another RSS aggregator, then consider following JerseySmarts.com at http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/ or if you’re already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here.

Anyway, the link series is back. Enjoy the links below and get your weekend started right!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #2, Edition #1
5 Things I Wish I Knew Before College, Be Great Daily
One of my younger fraternity alumni started a blog focused on personal development, motivation, and inspiration. He wrote an entry that caught my eye because of its timeliness. With colleges across the nation kicking back into session either this past week or this coming week, I thought that now was the perfect time to share this entry. What are the 5 things that you wish you knew before college?

What If?, Danger & Play
Mike at Danger & Play has some of the best content on the web for men of all ages. This particular entry poses the question – what if? In this short, but thought-provoking read, Mike asks a lot of great “what if” questions. My favorite one was, “What if you live your life with a sense of urgency and purpose?” More people need to live life with a better sense of urgency. The time is now, people!

Great Leadership Isn’t About You, Harvard Business Review
This one is a little bit longer, but it really hits home on one of the core characteristics of great leadership. The article suggests that great leadership is about inspiring your followers to “share your enthusiasm for pursuing a shared ideal, objective, cause, or mission.” Amen! As the title of the article states – great leadership is not about YOU!

The English Major Has Lost Its Way, John William Pope Center
Keeping with the earlier theme of “back to school,” this is an entry about how the English major has lost its way in higher education. My undergraduate degree is in English, but I always knew that English couldn’t be the end of the road. In my graduate studies I opted to get a degree in Public Policy along with two different certifications – one in Public Relations and another in Curriculum Studies. You have to be diversified if you’re an English major. The third to last paragraph of the linked commentary gives a concrete suggestion to improve the English major curriculum, and I agree with the writer.

What’s Wrong With Comcast?, The Atlantic
We all remember listening a few months ago as a customer tried to cancel his service with Comcast and the telephone rep for the cable giant refused to let him do so until the bitter end. It was the very definition of a public relations nightmare for Comcast. In the wake of the call being released, some folks began interviewing current and former Comcast employees to try to figure out what the problem is over there. This article sums up their largest problem – a company that is built on a fragmented structure. Not a good situation to be in. Not good at all.

Building a Better Teacher: An Interview with Elizabeth Green, EdWeek
Normally, I’d stay far away from posting links that direct people to articles on education-based websites. The unfortunate truth is that the public education industry is inundated with extremists and ideologues who are intellectually dishonest and blatantly lie to disgrace the people they assume to be their opposition. And most public school teachers are brainwashed by the propaganda organizations that they call “unions” (particularly here in New Jersey) so it makes having an intelligent conversations virtually impossible. This interview, however, is with an author who wrote a book about which teaching methods work in a charter school in Newark. Incidentally, this charter schools is also one of my clients, so I’m extra interested in their success. In fact, I’m so interested that I’m actually going to buy a physical copy of this book (who buys physical books any more?!) to see what the author has to say.

How Anthony the Developer Lost Over 200 Lbs… In One Year, Nerd Fitness
Sometimes, I’ll spend an hour or so reading through different motivational websites focused on realistic approaches to the world. Many years ago, though, I stopped reading blogs focused on the primary writer’s weight loss journey. Those blogs are a dime a dozen out there, but their abundance doesn’t bother me. I’m bothered by the “if I can do it, YOU can do it!” bullshit that accompanies most of these weight loss journeys. No, idiot. Your readers’ lives are different than your lives. They can’t do exactly what you did because they’re NOT you. A few years ago there was a semi-famous blog written by a guy who lost 125 pounds by counting calories and starting to work out. Big surprise he lost weight, right? And then after he stopped counting calories and working out? He gained 70 pounds back. Now he justifies gaining the weight back as being healthy. Amazing. The article linked here is NOT that website nor is it that guy’s story! This article is from a fun fitness website called Nerd Fitness and it talks about a guy who lost 200 pounds. I’m not suggesting you get inspired from what this guy did because he’s not you. However, looking at the pictures is pretty dramatic and eye-opening.

The Necktie, Doghouse Diaries
One thing I hate about working in an office is that I often have to wear a necktie. I liked the comic that I’m linking here so much that I pinned it to my office wall. Stupid neckties…

‘Six Californias’ Plan May Make 2016 Ballot, USA Today
This article may not be as recent as some of the others linked above, but it is certainly relevant. Particularly in our country, where we’re finally beginning to have a national dialogue about whether a two-party system works best for American and what elements are in place that keep the two-headed monster firmly in control of American politics. The map in this article shows how the state of California could (and should) be broken into six different states.

9 Striking Library Posters from the Great Depression, BOOK RIOT
If you made it down this far, then you already know that I was an English major back in college. You may have surmised from that information that I enjoy reading – which would be correct. One of the book-focused websites that I follow is BOOK RIOT, though not all of their content is focused on book reviews. Take, for example, the entry linked here. This is a post listing nine different library posters from the time of the Great Depression. I don’t know why, but I appreciated these posters – they were fun to look at for a few minutes. I hope you enjoy them!

Again, if you don’t already have one, then I recommend opening a free Feedly account. You can follow JerseySmarts.com on Feedly or you can add us to your existing RSS aggregator. Enjoy!

Who is to Blame? The Students or The Professors?

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As a member of the adjunct faculty at the local college, I receive an e-mail whenever someone from our institution is in the media. Most recently, I received a message stating that a professor and one of the administrators at the college collaborated on a piece discussing whether college students or professors were to blame for poor performance if, and when, it occurs. From the article:

This conclusion that students are not “all right” often takes the form of lamenting students’ lack of motivation, lack of interest, lack of preparation, excessive partying, excessive socializing, and a lack of enthusiasm for our teaching. Worse, some make broad claims that students in general “don’t read,” “can’t write” and “can’t think,” especially compared to students of yesteryear. But are these novel complaints? A faculty report once concluded that 25 percent of students admitted to Harvard in 1897 did not have the writing skills necessary to succeed in college. This does not bode well for progress in higher education over the past 100+ years.

Unfortunately what this does suggest is that the phenomenon of blaming students is more ubiquitous and may not be limited to teachers who are exceptionally egocentric, narcissistic, burnt-out, curmudgeonly, or those who would rather not teach at all.

Among the many items that I like in these two paragraphs, I think special attention should be paid to the description of certain professors as, “exceptionally egocentric, narcissistic, burnt-out, [or] curmudgeonly.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve had professors that fit all of these adjectives (and sometimes all at once!). I had a racist and sexist professor (who I’ve blogged about before) who was “exceptionally egocentric” while being narcissistic at the same time. It was amazing. This was a woman who actively worked against student learning if you were a white male in her classroom. It was unbelievable, though in some respects I think that her arrogance and downright racism and sexism have caused me to be a better educator today. I am now keenly aware of my treatment of minority students and my interactions with the male and female contingencies in my classroom.

Getting back to the article, I think that the writers (Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. and David B. Strohmetz) do a great job of explaining how professors may easily forget how they acted while they were college students. This is another issue that I try to be aware of as I’m teaching my classes. When I look at the students and I notice that a bunch of them are either not paying attention or have their heads down, I immediately change up my lesson plan to get them more engaged in the classroom. I believe that teaching should not be a process that is set in stone, but rather it should adapt (as/if necessary) to the environment. Luckily, I rarely look at the students and see them bored en masse though I do catch one or two of them going to town on their BlackBerries or text messaging like crazy. Which brings me to another portion of Lewandowski and Strohmetz’s article:

Students in our classes today do check their cell phones excessively. When we were students, most of us never would have dreamed of doing such a thing (mainly because there weren’t cell phones). But, if you had such a device as a student, I suspect that you may have found it difficult to avoid checking for text messages about that night’s social activities as well. Now that we do have these devices, how many of your colleagues (if not yourself) check their BlackBerrys or iPhones on a potentially excessive basis? Although there may be generation differences in the available technology, students and teachers of yesterday and today share the same desire to learn useful information, to be financially secure, to lead a happy life, and to be efficient, and to avoid wasting time engaging in seemingly meaningless activities. Ultimately, if we focus on the similarities rather than highlight the differences, we will be more effective in helping our students to learn.

Alright, point taken. And, in fact, I’ve even found myself sitting in the back of the room during my classes checking my text messages as they come in (though never responding). Oh, sometimes I sit in the back of the room to change up the atmosphere in the classroom. Throws some of the students for a loop, but it allows me to focus on seeing the lesson as they see it. I think I’ve done this twice so far this semester.

Again, I would recommend that if you have any interest in the college classroom or if you are a professor, teacher, engaged student, or just someone interested in knowing more about the relationships in the classroom, then I suggest reading this article. It is both interesting and thought-provoking.

Roxbury Board of Education Misses The Point

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Each day I browse around the websites of various newspapers that I would read if I had subscriptions and had the time to sit down in the morning and look over them. These include local newspaper websites like the Asbury Park Press and the Daily Record. This morning I was flipping around the Daily Record’s website and came across an article entitled, “Roxbury student code of conduct now in effect 24/7/365.” I’d link you to the article, but these Gannett-owned newspapers don’t keep their articles online for more than a few days and then you have to pay for them (ha!). However, the point of the article was as follows:

The school board has revised its code of conduct policy to require students be on their best behavior the entire calendar year — even when school is out — or face suspension from extracurricular activities, board member Chris Rogers said Tuesday.

Now as a former student at Roxbury High School and as a former college student who fought this type of nanny-state activity at my university, I hate this decision by the Roxbury school board. And there are any number of reasons to hate it. First of all, the policy seems to single out those students that are involved in extracurricular activity. So little Susie is on the softball team and is found in violation of this vague policy in July (what IS “best behavior?”). Is she to be suspended from the first four or five softball games the following spring? Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?

What about little Bobby who doesn’t have any extracurricular activities. Does he get suspended from school if he does something that doesn’t qualify as “best behavior” in August? And if so, then is he suspended the first two weeks of school in September for an “offense” committed on August 1st? Is this insane or what?

How about Jen – the President of the Student Council. She gets cited for not being on her “best behavior” a few days after school is out in June. Is she then suspended from participating in the Student Council for the month of September?

And is it fair that Billy is suspended from school while Susie and Jen just get to miss out on their extracurricular activities?

And does this policy apply to the school’s faculty? Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that every single teacher or employee of the school district exhibits their “best behavior” all day, every day. And who is to define “best behavior?” What if my family’s best behavior is different than your family’s definition? Do you see how crazy this can get?

These types of theoretical situations can go on and on, which is typical of policies that shouldn’t be enacted in the first place. The school board is overstepping their bounds in this case in an inappropriate manner. This policy should be rescinded immediately.