Nayna's Forum Reveiw

I had a fun time at the forum. There were five speakers, but I don’t remember all their names.
The first speaker was a lady. She talked about the four things to do to discovery my mission. 1. Take time to be holy. She talked about finding time to do something that you loved, something that relaxed you. 2. Strengthen the physical. Keep yourself healthy so that you won’t be hindered from doing your mission. 3. Expose yourself to greatness. Have you ever heard the expression “you are what you eat” ? I think it goes the same with who you hang out with. If you hang out with kids who ditch school all the time, most likely you will ditch at least once because your friends talked you into it. But if you hang out with good, or great, people, you will do good or great things. 4. Perform an act of service. I hear this all the time in church. You really do feel good about yourself when you serve other people, and more likely than not your mission will be to help people.
She had a lot of stories about great people. She encouraged us to listen to inspiration and to not compare ourselves with others. One activity she had us do was: She asked us to get in a group of at least two people, and each person had to hold on to a pen or pencil. With the pen or pencil you had to draw a picture of your dream house. It turned out to be a very crude box with squares for windows, a tree, and the title Our Dream House. It defiantly wasn’t my idea for my dream house. She explained that sometimes groups were good, and sometimes it was better to be on your own, and that we should not get involved in groups that would bring us down.
The second speaker was Mrs. Kepner, and I knew her before the forum. I like her a lot. She is fun and she had us play a couple games. She also told us she did not want any teenagers in her class, she wanted young adults. She talked about being Great. G for God R for righteous/rely E effect A attitude T truth. She put us in groups and gave us a piece of paper, then had us present the person that the paper was about. My group was doing Florence Nightingale, who was a volunteer medic in a war. The paper said that she made the places she worked in more cleanly and orderly, and that made a huge difference in how many soldiers survived. Most groups did a skit about their person, and one did a rap. That was fun, but our skit was lame.
The third speaker was also fun. First he had us stand up and do a dance and clap and shout. He had us say “yes” or “great” a whole lot. He got on a few people who didn’t say anything, but he was just joking around. He talked about “What do I do with my life?”. He told us that our purpose was to solve problems. That gave me a whole knew insight to what we really do, which is solve problems. Our lives are filled with problems that we have to solve, some of the simpler ones are, problem: hunger. What do you do when you are hungry? You eat something. Problem solved. Then he asked us if it was possible to gather a whole bunch of food and ship it to children who hadn’t eaten the day before. We said yes, it was possible. I don’t really remember how he put it, but he said something about that we couldn’t do that everyday, that we had to solve other problems, too.
The forth speaker was the president of the George Wythe College and he was awesome. First he played a couple songs on his guitar for us. The first song was about him not getting a date, and the second was about people picking on him. Then he showed us words on a whiteboard and showed us the words in sigh-language. Then he told us a King-Kong story in sign-language using the words he had showed us before. That was cool. Then he told us about some things. He showed us other words, and the actual meaning of the different parts of the word. Virtue- I don’t really know exactly what he said, but in the end he said virtue meant fulfilling the purpose for which you were created for. Wisdom- house of roots- this meant you get wisdom thru roots, or sources. Diplomacy- bringing two sides together. Courage- of the heart. He also told us what Entertain and Amusement meant. Entertain- draws in; Amusement- not thinking. He said it was not bad to want to be entertained or amused, but that that shouldn’t be that only thing we want.
The final speaker talked about our inner power. He asked us questions like: What level of power do I have in me? What is my power to be used for? What is the source of my inner power? I thought over these questions. Then he asked us if we could do something great what would it be? I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Then he had us prepare a one minute speech and put us in groups. Everyone in my group gave a little talk. I just said how I like animals and that I wanted to work with them when I grew up. We had a little break. We came back and he had us visualize ourselves doing something great. Helping people. At the end he quoted the Give me liberty or give me death speech. I don’t think I ever heard it before then, but it was cool.
I liked all the speakers, some more, some less. The first and last I didn’t pay much attention to, but maybe that was because A. it was 8:00 in the morning, and I was tired and B. It was late in the day and I had been sitting in the same chair for four hours. In the end I was glad I went, but in the beginning… Anyway, I had fun.
Marlayna Helen Batchelor

Southwest TJEd Forum 2010 - Part 3

Breakout Sessions

The conference had two break-out sessions in the afternoon so that attendees could choose which classes to attend. There were a lot of great classes and it was hard to choose. But, alas, I did manage to choose. :-)

Dan Ralphs - "Three Types of Students"

Many of you are probably familiar with the Three Types of Education, those of us who have read the books about Leadership Education have heard about them many times. Dan Ralphs expanded the chart that I have below to add what type of student is created in each type of learning. I truly enjoyed expanding my understanding of these concepts. I know that I had heard this before in a talk by Oliver DeMille at the first Southwest TJEd Forum two years ago, but I NEEDED to hear this again, and specifically, at this time.

Three Types of Education

Education	Goal	Methodology	Curriculum
Conveyor Belt	1 - Job Training 2 - What to Think	Soviet Conveyor Belt Same Education at the same age Educate the poor	75% Social 25% Textbooks Comfortable for factory jobs
Professional	1 - Train Experts 2 - When to Think	Elite Conveyor Belt	Case Studies Ethics Solve Problems
Leadership Education	1 - Train Entrepenuers 2 - How to Think	Mentoring	Define Problems Classics

Three Types of Students

Education	Study Habits	Learning	Teacher/Student	Motivation
Conveyor-Belt	Entitlement Min/Max	Teacherbased	Fear/Obey	Fear based
Pressional	Memorizers/Test Based	Expert Centered	Competitive	Utility
Leadership Education	Purposeful Depth	Wisdom Centered	Submissive	Love

Epiphanies during this speech:

• Christian is still somewhat of a conveyor-belt student. He spent the first 3 1/2 years following the conveyor-belt at public school and I have worked very hard to help him get off. I can see now that he has one foot on and one foot off. As hard as this is for me to admit, it is IMPORTANT that as his mentor I stop ignoring this fact and focus on how to help him instead. My pride was getting in the way (not wanting to admit that he is still a conveyor-belt student at times). But, how many of us adults are still conveyor-belt students? How hard is it for US to get off? Why should I be afraid of admitting this and doing what needs to be done to help him?
• Leadership happens when the student chooses a mentor. I think applies to what I wrote above. In my personal realm of application, I can see that I need to inspire Christian to choose me as his "mentor" and stop looking at me as his "teacher".

Dr. Andrew Groft's Closing Remarks

Education is...

• expanding definitions.
• making connections.
• considering applications.

People without good family are searching for the government to make them happy.

The way that you see the government is the way that you see education.

I learned a great deal more, but it is so hard to put it all into words. He discussed Plato's "Republic" and Montesquieu's views on government. I really need to read these works before I will understand it all, or be able to explain it.

And finally...he left us with this quote.

The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. - Abraham Lincoln

Part 1 - Carol Shippy and Dr. Andrew Groft
Part 2 - Julie Early

Southwest TJEd Forum 2010 - Part 2

Julie Early - "Adult Phases of Leadership Education"

I think I learned the most immediately applicable information from Julie Early. She describes the Phases of Learning for Adults as "skill sets". I realized as she spoke that I really have gone through Core and Love of Learning, placing me now where I want to be in Scholar Phase. I had tried to PUSH myself out of Love of Learning and into Scholar a little too early. Now, I look back and realize that was acceptable in some ways, as long as I learned the skills needed in each phase.

Core Phase:

1. Set a spectrum of Truth - usually at the extremes - Right and Wrong, True and False, Good and Bad. Many adults have this, but it is important to go back periodically to make sure our core skills are in place. Should adults go back to core? Of course! Starting off in extremes is normal.
2. Work and Play - Adults learn more from work than play. We should work on relationships and not engage in "selfish play". Self-help books are often a part of this phase. Roles are distinguished and building self-worth through work is important.

Love of Learning - it's about discovery:

Signs that you are in Love of Learning as an Adult:

1.  Bounce around in books.
2. Don't finish all the books you start.
3. "Flitting" from thing to thing (can get expensive).
4. Love of Learners LOVE rules - ("But 'how' do I do it?" - looking for specific how-to steps)

Things to focus on:

1. Structure Time, not Content
2. Keep a Commonplace Book - Notebook with notes on readings, observations in nature, etc. (I keep several actually for rough draft essays on the books I'm reading, personal mission discovery, and daily to do notes.)
3. Groups are more important in this phase. Join a book discussion or mentored class.
4. Focus on Reading, Writing, and Discussing.

Scholar Phase - study deeply:

1. Work is part of their education - think about your studies while you work.
2. Learn through study and discussion.
3. Focus on Principles instead of Plots or Rules.
4. They begin to see the middle ground of grey and stop thinking so much in absolutes.
5. Fill in the holes of your education.
6. Begin to have a sense of mission.

One other KEY that I learned from her speech was this:

Crisis will come and it will shake up our education - that is normal and expected.

Part 1 - Carol Shippy and Dr. Andrew Groft

Part 3 - Dan Ralphs

Southwest TJEd Forum 2010 - Part 1

Marly, Chris, and I attended the 2010 Southwest TJEd Forum. All I can say is "WOW! Fantastic!" Chris was not very thrilled about going. This is the first year that I registered him to go to the Youth Forum, but when the day was done he said he was very glad he went. I was on the committee this year and felt like the entire thing was such a great experience that I might be up for doing it again. Maybe I'll have to look into that when we get settled in our new place.

My overall feelings are that this was well worth the money and effort to attend. The speakers were fabulous and I hung on every word for many of them. My pen could not write fast enough to record my thoughts and feelings. Here are some very basic personal perspectives that I am sharing. There is really no way to record it all, and it so individualized that what I learned will not be the same as the person next to me.

Carol Shippy - Arizona Families for Home Education (AFHE) - "Update on Laws in Arizona"

Now, some of you may know that I have not always had the best relations with some of the board members at AFHE. I will say here that I do greatly appreciate ALL that they have done to keep the freedom to homeschool in Arizona (even though they are a bit anti-Mormon at times). Her speech on educational freedom and all the work they are doing was wonderful. I am very thankful for their organization and all that they do.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Andrew Groft - President of George Wythe University - "The Renaissance of Kings"

This speech really resonated within me. I had several epiphanies during his charismatic presentation.

1. There are many dangers awaiting to keep us from getting a liberal arts education - distractions, sin, addictions, and apathy. 
2. The masses (general population) have always had the heart, strength, and might to overpower tyrannical governments, they just have not had the MIND. Thus we need to become truly educated so that we have ALL the powers. 
3. Virtue means to become what your creator intended for you to become. 
4. Education today = job training. The original meaning of the word education in Latin (ex ducare) is "to draw out that which is already there" or "to cause to be expressed" or "to draw out meaning".
5. I can make a difference in ANY career.

Powerful stuff to me.

He also spoke about that the right kind of education is:

• Biological - the quest to understand life within the mind.
• Biopathical - the quest to understand life within the heart.

Part 2 - Julie Early
Part 3 - Coming Soon!