Blissful summer days are a great time to think about school!
You’re probably aware that education could be improved. I bet you can come up with a few improvements you’d like right now.
Discussions of problems in education are not new. Way back in 1990, in an article entitled “The Quality School,” Dr. Wm. Glasser identified issues with schooling that still resonate today. Continue reading
Some folks choose to be annoyed when they perceive that they have been treated like guinea pigs! So there was some outrage when the results of a Facebook study were recently published in a scientific journal.
Here’s the gist of the story. Facebook scientists conducted an experiment on some users to learn whether emotions expressed on Facebook are contagious. They fiddled (in an automated way) with the emotional content of people’s news feeds and then measured whether people’s posts became positive or negative.
What do you think they found? Do you think that the emotional tone of what you read has an impact on what you say? Continue reading
Although we humans do a lot of talking (and occasionally listening), it can still be difficult to understand each other. Even the words we use with ourselves—our internal dialog—can shape how we understand our lives.
Do we believe that we are free to make choices? Or do we believe that our lives and behaviours are largely determined by other people or by things out of our control?
Even if we do believe that we are in charge of our choices, our own words sometimes contradict us. Keep an ear out for some of these telling phrases. Do you hear them in conversations? Do you say them yourself? Continue reading
Responses to the column that asked, “Are you in the people business?” have encouraged me to take this “people business” a little further.
If (or when) you realize that you are in the “people business,” then you might find it helpful to do some analysis. That is, evaluate the quality and type of your relationships.
One useful activity is to draw a relationship map (no drawing skill required!) If you happen to already be familiar with a creativity tool called the “mind map,” you’ll see some similarities here. Continue reading
How we use our words can shape our thoughts and attitudes. Love is many-splendored indeed, and we use the word “love” in many ways.
Anna says, “I’m not in love with my husband anymore. We used to be in love, but now we’re not.”
“In love” implies a state of being, much like being in trouble, or in debt, or in between jobs. It kind of implies that love is done to you; you were walking along minding your own business and zap! You found yourself in love! Continue reading
It’s a beautiful day. You, however, have to go to work. And mow the lawn. And take the kids to practice, the cat to the vet, and visit the in-laws.
Does it seem that your to-do list goes on and on? That you can never catch up? And there’s barely a minute that truly belongs to you? Continue reading
Are you in the “people business”? Almost certainly, the answer is… yes!
In their book, Have a Nice Conflict, Scudder, Patterson, and Mitchell assert that everyone is in the people business. There’s nary a line of work where people aren’t involved —whether you build products, greet customers, run a household, or raise a family.
Even if you accept that the people business is all-encompassing, there’s still the reasonable question: “So what?” Continue reading
Anger, like many negative emotions, can ruin your whole day, eh? Depending on the severity, anger can leave a bad taste for weeks, months, or even a whole lifetime.
It may be tempting to believe that we can’t control our anger. Everyone understands this statement: “He (or she) makes me so mad!” The implication is that other people can control our emotions; they can literally “make” us mad. Is it really true? Continue reading
