02.28.10: The Longest Day

Although February is the shortest month, the last day of the month, took an eternity. Due to a generous Valentine's gift, we went to an indoor, water-park themed hotel, a seemingly idyllic getaway amidst mid-40's temps outside. And yet, if you pack a 1000+ people into an indoor pool - even if it's really big and wrapped with slides - it's still chaos. To me, a getaway has less, not more, has a calming, serene view, not a teeming pool with the water taking up less surface space than the guests.

We had a 24 hour pass, from Saturday to Sunday, and I got home on Sunday exhausted and wishing for a vacation from our little getaway. Now my 5 and 7 year old had fun, but that would have happened anyway.

Back to the Basics

Susan Engel's op-ed "Playing to Learn" (New York Times, February 1, 2010) creates an ideal classroom for a new reformed educational system. She shares some of the same views we believe when creating an effective educational program ...

On relevancy:
"Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade."

On experiential education:
"Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it."

On engagement:
"Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more."

On free play time:
"Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else’s perspective and thinking of alternate solutions."

Read the full article.

Ideas from Emerging Issues Forum

Earlier this month, a few of us attended a forum in Raleigh, NC hosted by the Emerging Issues Institute, "a public policy, think-and-do tank." The forum brings together an impressive array of speakers. This year between Dan Pink, Bill Strickland and Tom Kelley, we heard US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan speak. Some sticking points he discussed:

• No Child Left Behind had loose goals and tight prescriptive tactics; Duncan says we need tight goals and freedom on how to get there
• “we need to educate our way out of this recession”
• Department of Education is consolidating from 38 programs to 11

More from the conference to come soon, so check back later.

Bruce Talks Economic Literacy on NPR

Yesterday morning, Topics co-founder, Bruce Nofsinger, spoke on the local NPR affiliate, WFAE, about the importance of teaching economic literacy for k-12 students. Also on the panel for the hour long "Charlotte Talks" program were Derwin Dubose, the Director of Financial Literacy in the NC State Treasury Department and Sandy Wheat, the Executive Director of NC Council on Economic Education and President, NC JumpStart Coalition for Financial Literacy for Youth.

You can listen to the program on wfae.org.

Winn Discusses Cause Campaigns for Domestic Issues

Winn Maddrey Discusses Cause Campaigns for Domestic Issues from Topics Education on Vimeo.

We have all witnessed the tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti and the good hearts of Americans as they donate millions of dollars to their neighbor. In this video, Winn discusses just that and calls on corporate and nonprofit foundations to implement cause campaigns that can drive Americans to act similarly for urgent domestic issues.

The N Word (i.e., Nuance)

By Bruce Nofsinger, Co-founder & Partner

This month marks the 125th anniversary of the publication of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It just happens to be my favorite work of fiction. I think I've read it four times -- twice with a small group of 11 and 12 year-olds, as we floated down the French Broad River on wooden rafts!

Yes, for a week we imitated Huck, camping and interacting with communities along the river in East Tennessee. In the '80s and early '90s I worked at an incredible summer camp in the mountains of NC. Eagle's Nest Camp emphasized experiential education, and the Huck Finn Adventure was a clear example of how active learning can be a lot of fun. In fact, with only 8 slots for campers, the Huck Finn Adventure filled up within the first two weeks that families could send in their applications for the following summer!

There are at least 3 topics of discussion that can emerge from this set up:

• value of active learning/experiential education
• value of summer camp
• value of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The 125th anniversary prompts me to tackle the last bullet point -- specifically the controversy that has followed the novel for most of those 125 years. I'm talking about its frequent use of the "N word" and the resulting pushes to have the work scrubbed from reading lists and pushes to have the word scrubbed from the text.

The end result of either of those pushes is (and would be) a travesty. I'll avoid a treatise on the reasons that the novel uses the "N word" as well as my general opinion against sanitizing and censoring artistic works. Instead, I want to focus on the idea of giving people a little credit to understand and appreciate nuance.

When we read the book before and during our trip down the river, we took turns reading it aloud. Knowing the reactions that the word evokes, particularly when spoken, the other counselor and I addressed its use head on. Now, these were 11 and 12 year-olds -- they couldn't fully understand and appreciate the history of the use of the word and the many ways in which social mores have changed since the time the novel is set. They could understand, though, that our social mores have changed, and they could appreciate that most people no longer speak that way.

More important, despite having limited life experiences as pre-teens, they recognized enough within the story seen through Huck's eyes for them to care about it -- to see it as more than a bunch of words on a page, some of which are offensive by today's standards. Still, they needed our guidance, our prompting, and our help with making connections between the 19th century and today and between Huck's life and their own lives. And I have to point out that that guidance didn't come from my standing on one side of the raft and telling them/lecturing them about those connections. Instead, the guidance was more about helping them explore and discover ideas and then process them -- to help them find connections in unexpected and sometimes subtle ways. You know, it was a lot like being a guide on a river trek when you weren't exactly sure what was around the next bend in the river!

As guides for the trip, I think we found a balance between mitigating risks and seizing adventure and opportunity. As guides for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I think we found a similar combination that gave the campers credit for understanding/appreciating nuances as well as guidance along the way.

Sadly, I think that combination is too rare in matters that extend far beyond Huck.

Overjoyed not Annoyed by New Year’s Resolutions

By Josh Thomas, Partner, Leader Health & Wellness Practice Area

Ah the new year (and is it a new decade, too, or not?)… Crisp, cold air. Slightly longer and growing days. And New Year’s Resolutions — those wonderful opportunities to re-align our life goals with our actual life habits. Resolutions are just a great opportunity to take a look at ourselves, aren’t they? Well, that may not be how all of us look at them this time of year.

If you are a consistent gym visitor, you may already know what I’m about to say. Working out in the month of January sucks. And it’s not just because you’ve gotten fat and happy over the holidays and the early morning alarm sounds more obnoxious than ever. You’ve conditioned yourself for that. No, what makes January workouts such a pain is not the swollen belly but the swelling attendance.

I work out early with a core group of about 15 others at my gym. Same folks are always there. Except in January. That’s when the New Year’s Resolution crowd shows up, believing that this time it’s gonna be different. This time I’m really gonna to get in shape! Fifteen turns into 35 and quick energetic workouts become, ahem, an exercise in line waiting.

It’s a pain. Fortunately for the diehards, it’s typically a short-lived frustration. In fact, according to a recent article on MSNBC.com, “almost one-third of us break our resolutions by the end of January, and more than 75 percent call it quits by the end of March.” And that’s good news for me, right? Maybe not.

The fact is, I spend a lot of my time personally and professionally writing about and advocating for healthier, happier kids and families. I should be happy to see new folks attempting to improve their health — for themselves and for their families who love them. I’m embarrassed that I lost sight of that.

So here’s my new year’s resolution (better late than never): I will be encouraging of the newbies to keep it up rather than rolling my eyes and muttering to myself, Don’t bend over like that, you’re going to hurt yourself. Or, No, the dirty towels go over there!

When appropriate, I will help them safely work into a routine that helps them achieve their goals, rather than waiting for them to fail and leave so that I can get back to achieving mine.

And here is what I’m asking of you: If you are a resolution maker, I’m encouraging you to stick with your goals or to re-align them (after a month or so, this would be a good time to think about that) to be more sustainable over the long term. Maybe 4 marathons this year was too big a leap, but one 10K is doable!

And if you’re a regular at your gym, yoga studio, or park, cut the crowds some slack. After all, we’re there because we enjoy and benefit from the experience. Shouldn’t we want others to realize the same? Wouldn’t we all be better off if we were ALL better off (physically and mentally)? I think so. In fact, I’m sure of it. Whose up for cross-training tomorrow morning?

Top Five: TED Talks

A year ago, some folks in the office were at the annual TED event in Palm Springs, CA helping a client with a presentation (for more on that experience, see this article). This year, since we aren't going, we’d like to share our new Top Five Favorite TED videos with you. We’ve done this before, but if you can’t tell, we really do think they're “ideas worth spreading”.

Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story


Pattie Maes and Prana Mistry Demo SixthSense



Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science


Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation



J.J. Abrams's, the creator of LOST, on mystery and creativity

02.03.10: Trust in Others

I was working this morning in a coffee shop and, as usual, the place is packed. So the gentlemen in the table next to me, got up to use the restroom. He - a man I'd never met nor seen before - asked me to keep an eye on his stuff. To me, it appeared to be all of his earthly possessions, house and car keys, cell phone, reading glasses, today's newspaper, and a laptop bag.

At first I was struck by the trust placed in me, since I easily could have pilfered any or all of these items. And then I began to realize that the trust was as much in me as in the community in the coffee house, that the cumulative whole would watch me watch his stuff.

At the end of the day, I think he was more worried about losing his seat than his stuff.