Challenging the Process

In my paper about developing leadership I wrote how a good leader is courageous and challenges the system and old rules and traditions. Then when reading the text it was awesome to find the same point. Change is can be good. If our country did not change than our country would not be where it is today. Our constitution used to say that black people were only ¾ of a person and that women couldn’t vote. Can you imagine what today would be like if something hadn’t changed. I know that some of my very close friends I would have never met. I might not be in college if it wasn’t for women becoming closer to equality to men. Change is something that does not always just happen. A leader has to be looking for a way to innovate and better a situation, group, event, place, and system. Sometimes the changes that need or could take place are not obvious and you have to look at things from a different angle. To cause an innovation or a change for the better you have to communicate with your group and decide what would be best for EVERYONE. It’s okay to take risks. If something doesn’t work it is okay to go back to the old.

Kouzes Exercise 5

I

1.       We can’t do Fool’s Fest because our team cannot afford to travel that far. X

2.       We can’t practice at a time where everyone is able to come X

3.       Participation is hard because of homework load X

4.       Too Expensive X

II.

1.       Talk to other groups who have built a group from scratch

2.       Look up ideas on how to fundraise

I am going to try super hard on the fundraisers this spring so we do not have to pay so much for traveling since I am cutting back at work.

Vision and Kouzes Excercise.

Kouzes Chapter Four

When you get people to share your vision it can be very powerful. I was already inspired by the story of Alyssa and her team and I have not even met her.  I am someone that can get passionate about many things and I am always looking for something inspiring, like Alyssa’s team. In my case I have to think twice and ask myself, Is this a good idea?. I don’t want someone that is a good leader to fire me up for a cause that is not morally and ethically worth my time.

With that said I have not thought of inspiring people to share my vision. When I wanted to work with kids it was something I thought I would just do MYSELF. I wasn’t being greedy I just thought that everyone else was doing their own thing and I would do mine. But the truth is that there are a lot of people out there who want to work with not just autistic but all disabled kids and there are many parents who want to be ensured that their children are being treated fairly and correctly in schools, sports, and various opportunities. Their children deserve every opportunity that other children get and being autistic does not mean one is disabled. They are bright children and geniuses in their own way. Maybe they aren’t the ones that are different, maybe we are.

I know there are people out there that see the way I do and I would love to work with them and find out what we can do in schools and programs to get autistic children the treatment they deserve. There are so many children that are treated in an appropriate way only because the teachers are not taught how to handle or work with them. To get change we could start in the teachers programs in colleges and educate EVERY teacher, not just the ones working with children with special needs, the effective ways of teaching such special and unique children.

Exercises-Past as Prologue to My Future

1.       My mother passed away in 1996. This has always affected me and always will. This makes mothers very important to me and the idea of family.

2.       Not one but many family trips with the Bignell family and Martin family. I met some of the most amazing people that will always be in my life. The kids I helped watch would inspire me. We went on rafting trips, pack trips, boating, camping, everything outdoors.

3.       Starting high school and deciding that I wanted to work hard to prove to myself I could be number one in my class and to make my dad proud.

4.       Meeting the severely autistic foster children Ben and Faith. Seeing how our school staff disciplined Ben in ways that made me sick. Hearing him cry in a room by himself for more than an hour because the Principal was tired of him. After working with Ben in his second grade P.E. class and seeing how he was so talented especially with music was inspiring. I also worked and grew up with a autistic boy Warren and I saw how he could make anything electronic work perfectly was when I realized how special and misunderstood autism was. I saw how wonderful his mother was and how she was patient and worked so hard with him on his social skills. I saw how their divorce set him back several years and how he had to learn to cope with things his own way.  

5.       Becoming a nanny for a Canadian family and realizing I always wanted to work with kids. I understand kids better than I understand adults and I want every child to have the same opportunities.

My themes would be either family or children related. I think that maybe because as a child I was hurt and I lost my mom that I seem to want to mother all children. I never want to see children hurt and I think I understand when they are and I feel a need to help. Family is very big to me and whenever I think of my childhood I think of the awesome experiences I had outdoors with my family, opportunities that many children never have.

II Imagine the Possibilities

I am currently involved in Women’s Rugby and my goal is to fundraise over $3000 for gear, travel and uniforms for our team. We want to get grounded as a team so we can be ensured that there will be a team for years to come. This vision is the same as many of the other founding members of our team. We all want to have rugby be recognized because it is such a fun sport that involves teamwork and involves a lot of athletic ability. When this is over I would like people to see us as a team, a team that has good character, and has the ability to win games.

III

What are people doing? People are offering to sponsor us because they see potential and they want to be advertised by a team like us. Others are asking to join and coming to practices because they see the sport as a growing sport and want to take a part of it.

What are People saying? People are saying that we work so well as a team. That we run smoothly and it’s like a family. Not with the Womens but the Men’s team as well. Anyone that spent a weekend with our team would feel like they were in a group of fun hard working brothers and sisters. Our two teams cheer and help each other out. We hang out outside of rugby and we are all good friends. I would call anyone on our team if I was in need of help or in trouble.

What are people feeling? They are feeling like a team, a family, and an athlete. After one season of Rugby you feel in better shape than many people feel ever in their life. Practices are hard but your teammates are encouraging. The coach does everything you do at practice and once you play in one game, you get your first tackle or score your first try it makes everything worthwhile. You become confident because you have your team behind you and you are in amazing shape.

Building a Women’s Rugby team is like restoring a car. You don’t start with much but as you get all the necessary parts it starts working and when it is finished it something anyone could be proud of.

The Fifth Discipline

I picture myself with a clinic, a clinic in which I work with kids that have disabilities. I help with speech pathology, autism and tutoring. It may include a program that deals with foster children. I want this because I want everyone to feel like they have a home. This clinic is colorful and happy. It is very inviting and I spend every waking minute with the children I work with. The other teachers and workers are bright and happy and care as much for the well being of the children as I do. Although I do not know if it is based on helping teach disabilities or focused on foster children or the welfare of children without homes I do know it will be based on children and helping them so they can grow up to be successful.

Self-image- I want to be someone welcoming and a person people would turn to for help. I want to be someone that children can relate to. A professional that enlists others to see that there is a need to help children. To make them feel at home, or to feel good enough.

Tangibles. I want to live in a rural setting. I want my family to have the same bringing up that I did. I also want them to work as much as I did. To know not everything is free. I want to be comfortable. I do not want to have to struggle to make a living but I also do not have unrealistic idea that I will be very wealthy.

Home- rural area near where I grew up in beautiful Ovando, MT. Not too far from town so I could travel for work.

I will keep my athletic routine and will encourage my kids or family to be athletic. I will be a big supporter of sports. I also will try to keep the outdoor activities including horses and dogs that I had when I was younger.

Exploring Biases 2/15/12

In the first reading I did the exercise where we write down what comes to mind when we read some categories. I am not going to list some of the things that I thought about but I thought that it is interesting that I could stereotype whole groups by a few things that stand out. I know I am very bias and I think it has something to do with me coming from such a small town and being a bit naïve. On one side of my family I also have very judgmental people who say what they think even if it is ridiculous. Because they are my family I always felt there must be truth in what they were saying but I was dead wrong in most cases.

     I do not want to offend anyone in saying how I have found that I am bias but I do want to say that I have learned many lessons and I feel I am a very open person now and a very accepting person. I also think there may be something not necessarily biases but when you put a person or a type of person on a pedestal because they are in a certain group so you expect more from them. This can be damaging for people because they have unfair expectations to meet.

I thought it was interesting in the reading how they told a story of how they were trying to describe a man named John without mentioning he was black. I realized I do that a lot. If it is a Caucasian I usually describe the clothes when I point people out but when they are of a different race then I usually use their race. I just thought it was interesting.

I agree with Richard Anderson when he says that communication is getting more and more important. Being able to write in a way that attracts people and also being able to get your message out to people is very important today especially with our media and advertising. What does he mean by only touching paper once? It’s funny that he keeps his clocks ten minutes fast because I do to.  

Interview With Teachers From Around the World

I just had a thought after Mondays class when we talked with all the teachers from different countries. I think that every ethnicity groups others as one type of figure or stereotype. That is why when I see a bunch of Asians it is relatively hard for me to tell them apart. While talking to the teachers many of them asked me if I was the girl they met earlier or yesterday or that morning. I had not met them before but I think that I fit into some stereotype of what an American looked like perhaps. I was even asked if me and the other blonde in the room were sisters. I don’t know if anything is behind this or if I am just crazy but I thought it was a weird coincidence.

Cultural Identity 2/13/12

I have multiple identities. In sixty seconds I describe myself as, white, country girl, tall, Christian, athletic, straight, middle class, college student, smart, kind. I was raised in a very rural setting filled with Christian beliefs. When it comes to the outside world and cities I am very naïve. I did not see a black person until I was ten years old and went to Spokane. Also because of media, in my mind I had made them out to be all criminals and out to hurt me. Now I know better but that was who I was. I was born several years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and had a lot of my child hood with uncles in war. I think it is important to know who I am and where I am from and it is important to know things about others as well because as individuals it will make us more understanding.

     I loved in one of the Ted Talks where he talked about how the world we live in is just one reality of a particular sense. It’s crazy how different peoples beliefs can vary much. Everyone has different views and it can be eye opening to learn and try to understand the way that other people do. I also think it is very important to not forget the old cultures and the traditions because they are our history. It is interesting that we all do similar things but we do them so differently. Like singing and dancing.

Thinking Cross Culturally 2/8/12

First off, I love the fact that King rarely retaliated towards the people that criticized him. I think this says so much about his character and his ability to lead. The fact that he wanted to work on constructive things rather than argue with people that were not likely to change their views shows how he wanted things to change. It shows that he was dedicated and sincere and not only looking for a reaction. There are many sayings such as “actions are better than words” that describe what King was doing.

Furthermore, it is astonishing to think now that the racism and the segregation allowed back then happened. As a country we have come so far to and we still have a long ways to go. Will we look back again in 50 or 100 years and be astonished at what is going on today? It is likely that we will and it would be awesome if we could speed up the time it takes to make diversity a wide known issue. Before college I never knew there were still issues.

King says that freedom is never freely given by an oppressor. This is true. Awareness has to be raised about a situation and then it can be addressed. Some people have to be persuaded to change and others only need to be told that they are doing something wrong.  I also love his quote questioning why it is bad that he is an extremist. He asks if Jesus, Thomas Jefferson, Amos, Abraham, Paul and others were extremists.

In the second text it starts talking about how cultures differ in how infants sleep in the same room or different rooms depending on cultures. In that way I am not very like the culture that I was raised in but also I had special circumstances. My mom had passed away when my sisters and I were 3, 5 ,and 7. We were so terrified to sleep alone that my dad built and extended bed that went from wall to wall and for several months we slept in the same room. I digress, this difference in cultures is very interesting. I hate the word programming though, it makes mankind seem like we have no free will and computer like.

Organizational Skills 2/6/12

What David Allen says in the beginning seems so simple, that you have to find the next step or course of action. This seems so so simple but the reality is that it can be a tough task to accomplish and that it is hard to make it a habit. It is also sometimes surprising how simple things can turn into jobs that consume a lot of time. Something as trivial as making a doctor’s appointment can be a hassle. The next action approach is a very good idea and if a person was organized I think that it would maybe be very beneficial. Maybe not just breaking a task down into steps in your brain but also writing the steps down in a planner of some sort.

I think that when I read about the different Quadrants I was visualizing each one and sorting different tasks and responsibilities into each Quadrant. I also related it to last semester when school, which is very important to me, got pushed aside when my father was rushed to the hospital and had emergency surgery. From thanksgiving to the day before Christmas Eve he was in the hospital and went through another surgery where he had a colon sectioning surgery. While he was in the hospital I immediately pushed other responsibilities to the side and concentrated on my family. I went home and helped out at the house and with the animals since my other sister is still in high school and has sports.

I can see how I spend a lot of time in Quadrant III thinking I am in Quadrant I. Especially because I am such a people pleaser that I put issues with others before myself. The need for me to balance out my four quadrants is very important.

Emotional Intelligence

In the reading I was glad to see them say that it is not easy to turn yourself into a Herb Kelleher. Because I am not like him but I do think that with hard work you can change your behavior. I know people that you are just drawn too. They make you feel comfortable and it just feels good to be around them. They seem to care and know what to say. It mentions that women and men have almost no difference in social intelligence when they are effective leaders. So why do women show so much more empathy? Is it because of the gender roles society places on them? Maybe it is because that society stereotypes a man to be tough and not show emotion and society has the idea that women are emotional.
   The questions that assess your own social intelligence were interesting. Some of them I was very good at and some of the other abilities I know that I am lacking but I can work on.
     It's really interesting that in Anatomy and Physiology we have to do ten service hours as well and we watched this video "Drive" in class as well. The second time through things click even more than before. I was shocked by the studies and then I tried to see how maybe they would relate to me. I thought that maybe they did not perform as well for the larger rewards because they felt pressured. When there is a lot at stake I always make mistakes and can never think as clearly. But when I am solving a difficult problem just for the satisfaction of getting it done it is almost always easier to do.
Some of the best inventions are created through accidents. Its hard to invent or solve a great problem when you are trying.

Service Hours

This semester in order to get my service hours I am going to do a variety of things. I will participate in service saturdays because I have once before and it was an awesome experience for me. I also usually volunteer in my home town of Ovando, MT at events that our community puts together. These events are varied and include basketball games, horse fun days, rodeos, and dances. I work in concessions or as a ref or clean up. Some of these events are only in the fall but there are more coming up this spring. Last year I volunteered at the Pow wow and I think that it would be fun to do it again. Since I am interested in kids and want to have a career working with them I think that I want to try Big Brothers, Big Sisters or CAP. I love children and in the summer I work as a nanny so doing service hours with children would be very fulfilling for me.