Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you're going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Go find a job you can commit to, a career or a business you can fall in love with.
A friend who loved music, who wanted to spend his life doing it, got a job doing PR for a record label. He hated doing PR, realized that just because he was in the record business didn't mean he had anything at all to do with music. Instead of finding a job he could love, he ended up being in proximity to, but nowhere involved with, something he cared about. I wish he had become a committed school teacher instead, spending every minute of his spare time making music and sharing it online for free. Instead, he's a frazzled publicity hound working twice as many hours for less money and doing no music at all.
I talk a lot about finding your passion (what Ken Robinson calls your Element) in my classes. I am one of the lucky people who gets to do what they love and earn a living at it. I want my students to do this too. But, as Godin points out, your passion or element doesn't always mean you get to make a living doing it.
Thus, the above post. If you can't make a living doing it, try and find a career that gets you as close to what you love as possible.
And if that doesn't work, then enjoy the hell out of your passion as a hobby.
*****
Here is another post on a topic near and dear to me: generations. I'm fascinated by the differences in generation and how each generation views other generation (especially when they view other generations negatively).
This offers advice from one generation to the next.
Here are the four tips:
1. Appreciation - appreciate what you have earned. Gen Y, nothing is given. You are entitled to nothing. So whatever you finally earn, learn to appreciate it. This is something Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" had no problem with, since they came out of the depression where they had nothing, thus they had to appreciate everything. We all could use a little bit more of that right now.
2. Execution matters - again, I don't think the millennias or Gen Y are the only ones guilty of this. In fact, you could argue, if you've ever watch a millennial play a video game, you know they will pay very close attention to minute details. But we all could learn from this advice. Don't rush a job. Do it right the first time. As one of my brother in laws says - "measure twice, cut once."
3. Interpersonal communication - this is a no brainer. Gen Y is immersed in technology, and they don't get the chance to practice interpersonal communication. Worse yet, Gen X doesn't do a good job of this either, so the millennials don't have a good role model for this.
4. Be independent - rely on yourself. This too should be a no brainer for Gen Y. After all, most answers are just a few clicks away, so why wouldn't they be able to be independent.
Sometimes, though, the millennials are caught in the middle. I know the mother of a former student who works at Digi Key and she has lamented how this younger generation doesn't work well independently. When a problem arises, instead of relying on their training (and looking the answer up), they are too quick to ask someone for help, thereby distracting that person (and if that person doesn't know . . . then they have to ask a third person and that means more distractions).
This is not good. Yet, as teachers, we are constantly telling kids to work in groups and talking to them about the importance of teams and collectively finding an answer. Yet, that is clearly not what the manager in the above example wants.
It's a bit of a catch-22. But the bottom line, I think, is a balance to making students work in groups and also learning to function in teams.
*****
No Child Left Behind = No Child Left Thinking
EQAO is Canada's version of NCLB and its obsession with high stakes tests.
There is some sort of comfort knowing the US isn't the only country suffering through this travesty to learning.
****
Ten Digital Story Telling Projects
Digital storytelling. I need to do a lot more of that.
10 Digital Storytelling Projects
*****
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Ten Digital Story Telling Projects
Digital storytelling. I need to do a lot more of that.
10 Digital Storytelling Projects
*****
"Let the boys have their social media while the women save the world."
My grandmother would have loved this.
*****
Learning how to "see" - leave it up to Seth Godin to hit the nail on the head again.
It's not about collecting the dots (in terms of high scores or grades or acceptance letters). It's about connecting the dots. And this is something (as you can tell from the EQAO) that doesn't happen at all in schools. The difference is not in collecting but in learning to see the connections.
Here's why (with Godin using sci fi films, namely 2001, as an example)
When Godin talks about how some people saw the internet, he is referring to himself. He was at Stanford 20 years ago and had access to the world wide web, which was still in its rudimentary stages. Godin saw it as a chance to publish a book called "100 interesting things on the internet." Yet, two guys with no more money or technology saw the same world wide web. But they created a search engine called Yahoo, which changed everything.
I think that's the importance of seeing. Steve Jobs was another master at this. 20 years ago if you were to tell me that I'd buy all my music from a computer company, I'd laugh at you. Yet, we all do it everyday. Steve Jobs looked at music and saw it differently.
So did Lars Ulrich who, mad, rightfully so, that Metallica's song "I Disappear" was leaked on Napster, took on the digital music movement. And lost. Badly. In truth, Metallica (and the whole record industry) has never been the same. They saw things as a threat and tried to protect the status quo.
That never works.
****
Next to passion and the difference in generations, one of my favorite topics is failure. I found this post on Twitter about the 10 Reasons Our Students Fail.
Along with that, here is a Forbe's article that broadly looks at the 10 reasons why we fail. I like this second list much better than the first.
****
Yet, another favorite topic of mine: Curiosity. Love this.
I was just visiting with Mr. Nordine the other day about this very topic. As we talked about school and the direction we were heading as a school, we talked about the idea of requiring one credit of an 'opposite' class for each student.
By 'opposite' class we mean that if you're headed to a liberal arts college to be an art history major, you should have to take at least one class in woodworking or small engines.
Likewise, if you're heading to a tech college, then you should have to take a class in economics or art history.
Why? To teach people the importance of curiosity, and hopefully, getting students to be interested in everything! Now that is a true education.
My grandmother would have loved this.
*****
Learning how to "see" - leave it up to Seth Godin to hit the nail on the head again.
It's not about collecting the dots (in terms of high scores or grades or acceptance letters). It's about connecting the dots. And this is something (as you can tell from the EQAO) that doesn't happen at all in schools. The difference is not in collecting but in learning to see the connections.
Here's why (with Godin using sci fi films, namely 2001, as an example)
Stanley Kubrick, the film's director, saw. He saw images and stories that were available to anyone who chose to see them, but others averted their eyes, grabbed for the easy or the quick or the work that would satisfy the boss in closest proximity.
When everyone has the same Mac and the same internet, the difference between hackneyed graphic design and extraordinary graphic design is just one thing—the ability to see.
Seeing, despite the name, isn't merely visual. I worked briefly with Arthur C. Clarke thirty years ago, and he saw, but he saw in words, and in concepts. The people who built the internet, the one you're using right now, saw how circuits and simple computer code could be connected to build something new and bigger. Others had the same tools, but not the same vision.
And all around us, we're surrounded by limits, by disasters (natural and otherwise) and by pessimism. Some people see in this opportunity and a chance to draw (with any sort of metaphorical pen) something. Others see in it a chance to hide, to settle and to sigh.
The same confidence and hubris that Kubrick and Clarke brought to their movie is available to anyone who decides to give more than they 'should' to a charity that has the audacity to changethings. While others believe they can (and must) merely settle.
In our best possible future together, I hope we'll do a better job of learning to see one another.
Some people see a struggling person and turn away. Others see a human being and work to open a door or lend a hand. There are possiblities all around us. Not just the clicks of recycling a tired cliche, but the opportunity to be brave. If we only had the guts.
When Godin talks about how some people saw the internet, he is referring to himself. He was at Stanford 20 years ago and had access to the world wide web, which was still in its rudimentary stages. Godin saw it as a chance to publish a book called "100 interesting things on the internet." Yet, two guys with no more money or technology saw the same world wide web. But they created a search engine called Yahoo, which changed everything.
I think that's the importance of seeing. Steve Jobs was another master at this. 20 years ago if you were to tell me that I'd buy all my music from a computer company, I'd laugh at you. Yet, we all do it everyday. Steve Jobs looked at music and saw it differently.
So did Lars Ulrich who, mad, rightfully so, that Metallica's song "I Disappear" was leaked on Napster, took on the digital music movement. And lost. Badly. In truth, Metallica (and the whole record industry) has never been the same. They saw things as a threat and tried to protect the status quo.
That never works.
****
Next to passion and the difference in generations, one of my favorite topics is failure. I found this post on Twitter about the 10 Reasons Our Students Fail.
Along with that, here is a Forbe's article that broadly looks at the 10 reasons why we fail. I like this second list much better than the first.
****
Yet, another favorite topic of mine: Curiosity. Love this.
I was just visiting with Mr. Nordine the other day about this very topic. As we talked about school and the direction we were heading as a school, we talked about the idea of requiring one credit of an 'opposite' class for each student.
By 'opposite' class we mean that if you're headed to a liberal arts college to be an art history major, you should have to take at least one class in woodworking or small engines.
Likewise, if you're heading to a tech college, then you should have to take a class in economics or art history.
Why? To teach people the importance of curiosity, and hopefully, getting students to be interested in everything! Now that is a true education.
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