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While not quite a Bushido posting, this is a post about the value and cultivation of work ethic. As my long time readers know, I have struggled with work ethic ever since leaving NYC. Something about the suburbs of Phoenix (and even the state of Iowa) drains the work ethic right out of me. Still, work ethic is a large part of what divides successful people from the ones who barely scrape by.

I’ve come back around to wanting things. I want to take this 4000 sq ft home of ours and turn it into a palace. I want to upgrade everything to the point where the home is a work of art and I can feel like I live in a place where I am impossibly happy to walk around in at any point in time replete with a full electronics suite and an office area that would make ABC’s Castle go, “wow.”

Work ethic requires a motivation such as this. Some are motivated by stuff. Some are motivated to be the best, to prove something to someone, or even to create a new life. This creates the foundation for the work ethic. The rest is built with bricks of fortitude, responsibility, and stickwithitness. In other words, work ethic depends on how you were brought up to respect work and how badly you want to see yourself be seen as a successful person. Consuelo Kickbush said in her presentation that she knew her mother was only a maid, but her mother viewed herself as a world class maid. She put in the work to be at the top of her field–no matter what the external perceptions of that field may be.

Work ethic is what remains after all the motivational speeches and the glamour of the role is put aside. Work ethic in what sustains you during the hardest part of anything you do. I’ve struggled with this for so long that I feel I have a deep understanding of what doesn’t work–at least for me. Reward structures don’t work. Simple gamesmanship where you compete against yourself to do the work faster and better has not worked. I think what is going to work for me is accepting the fact that true success takes time. I need to have the patience for Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to becoming an expert, and I need to make the daily time to pursue it.

Some Thoughts:

1. Madden Wall pt. 2: I hit that wall again where I am not really interested in playing Madden. Good. This time I was on for about a month and a half, but no I seem to have faded. It was the Superbowl (in game) that did it. I won, then went on to have a wonderful post season right up till the draft where I discovered I only had 5th round and later picks. I discovered this long after the picks I wanted were already gone. So, I restarted pre-Superbowl. I don’t want to play out that match again.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a Samurai. I wanted to be Batman in Samurai form. I wanted to have a code and a purpose and to rail against the wrongs of the world from behind the shield of a code that protected my sanity and elevated me to the level of romantic hero. This is the street equivilant of little girls dressing up as princesses and hoping for prince charming. I wanted a black motercycle, suit of armor, and a tech suite that would make the bat cry out with jealous rage. In my soul I would be Bushido.

Cheryl Matrasko writes that the core of the Bushido way is “To seek honor by first looking inside the soul and confront the intimate fears that we hide from ourselves, and that plague our psyche in everyday life. This is the purification of one’s soul.”

Over the next few months I want to explore that history and that idea of Bushido and connect it to today’s heroes, to myself, and the still nascent idea of who I want to be. It ought to be fun and maybe even a touch enlightening.

Some Thoughts:

1. A friend of mine suggested I have a paint party. I offer beer and wine to some friends who come over and help me paint my house. Brilliant. This is the essence of community support. Now all I need to do is come up with a painting schema for the house. I’m interested in doing something dramatic with the foyer and with the front and backyards. There should be some sort of connective tissue there, however I do not know what that will look like.

The weakest link in any access security mechanism is the human element. On the second day of the NADE conference I was able to manipulate that element in order to gain access to free internet service. Ironically, The Evernote databases were hacked the very next day, seemingly through the same port of entry that I used for my digital intrusion. I was forced to change my password, which apparently had been stolen. I went on to change other passwords that I used that were the same as I used for Evernote. I took it as a lesson in cybersecurity. Again, no matter how big and strong your Tower Defense is, there is always a way in.

My conference focused on Developmental Education, which is an entirely different kind of Tower Defense. As Hunter Boylan is fond of pointing out, we are all developmental in something. It is therefore inherent for us to see that developmental part of ourselves as a weakness and protect it as though it were the weak point into our Tower Defense. What this means to me as an instructor is that my students are protecting themselves against the idea that I might use their weakness in a subject as a way to exploit them. This is not what teachers do, but I suppose there are some who do, who make their students seem less than, because they can’t figure out the proper use of there (or their or they’re). So, my job becomes to make them comfortable revealing this almost intimate weakness and then helping them build up their skill so that this weak link, this human element, becomes a strength.

I spent several days learning how to do that better as well as recognizing that many of the strategies I use—purely on instinct—are being replicated and quantified by instructors across the country. I am not a good teacher yet—not by my standards. However, I do have a good mind. I’ve started to doubt that over the last ten years. When I moved to Phoenix I came to a point where I no longer believed in myself. I felt that I reached some apex of ability and had neither the capacity to improve nor the will to sustain the level I was at. Confidence ebbed and flowed until my first child came into the world, and that is when it took a nosedive. Each successive child brought a lower level of personal esteem, mostly because I don’t have that support system to remind me of my capacity for greatness. Positive comments are reserved for the children in my home. That is the family I married in to. So, staying positive about my worth, attractiveness, perseverance, charisma, skills as a professional teacher, and even a writing ability largely comes from the self (which could be dismissed as personal delusion) and the occasional friend who lets slip a tirade of positivity when the haters are not around.

It is a wonder I smile so dang much.

Today I listened to Conseulo Castillo Kickbush talk about her upbringing and living in a boxcar in a field in Illinois. It reminded me of my time in South Africa and the idea that we must be grateful but we must never be content.  Kickbush came from nothing and made herself into a success by her own standards and by national standards. She kept pushing and trying and striving to be more than her situation.

In academic circles you are not recognized for your physical beauty but for the beauty of your ideas, accomplishments, and struggles. It is with that in mind that NADE chose to honor Temple Grandin as the keynote speaker for this opening day of the 2013 conference. NADE is the National Association of Developmental Educators. Temple Grandin is a Ph.D in Animal Science and pioneered the humane destruction of animals. Her methods have been heralded throughout the planet and adopted by many meat producers. Still, she isn’t really here to talk about meat (though the Pork Board is meeting and she might be seeing them too). She is here because she was diagnosed with Autism at a young age and, despite this then misunderstood affliction, she excelled in academics and earned her Ph.d. She is the goal and the result of a good association of teachers and the reason why many of us continue to fight the battle of developmental Ed against increasingly overwhelming odds.

I watched a kidnapping drama unfold on Castle last night, so before I begin I feel compelled to remind my reader(s) that my heavily armed wife is not home alone, but is being checked in on by my ex military neighbor. Now, I wanted to share a few observations about air travel. To begin, there appear to be two distinct types of travelers: the relaxed veteran and the bring all. I suppose I fall into the latter category, but I mean to be in the former.

There is some crossover between the two, especially in styles of dress. I’ve noticed that women work especially hard at looking good during travel. This may be as a result of the female species being predominantly more relaxed at traveling. They might carry a purse or handbag and be cool. We guys tend to fall into that bring all category, lugging carry-ons, laptop bags, and knapsacks wherever we travel. The act of traveling itself seems to be a binary affair, with the travelers lined up into the categories I laid out partially according to mission. I am weighed down by bags, because I am going to a conference in the near-arctic land of Colorado. During this conference on Developmental Education I plan to scratch out multiple stories and have mad fun. Oh, I’ll learn something too I suppose.

But back to the travel conversation:

You can spot an experienced traveler at check in. You know them as the people who walk right by check in and zoom up to the security gate where there are often a set of express check-in kiosks mostly under-utilzed. They’re the one in the nice but comfortable bottoms and easy slip off shoes. They fly through the gates unnoticed and arrive at the best seats in the plane. You can see why i want to be down with that.

Some Thoughts:
1. My ipad was recently the victim of football violence. While showing my team a play on the ipad, a player decided to hurl a pretty spiral my way. It caught the bottom corner of the ipad and shattered the glass. The kid’s father offered to cover the cost or switch my ipad for the kid’s. I opted for the switch, but lo and behold Walmart may be riding in to the rescue. My insurance is not yet expired and they intend to try to fix the glass. Go Walmart.

2. Jordan kicked up a newstorm by claiming he would try to play basketball at 50. I’m trying to play flag football at 38 and that is a mess. The problem of it is my inability to work out at all. If I could just start with one gym day a week I’d be fine. Now, with the wife poised to take a job that has her working weekend overnights, I may really be in trouble. She’ll be in no shape to watch kids in the morning, causing me to lose the Sunday Football League. That will result in immediate weight gain and deep-seeded disappointment in self. A friend recently suggested I stop worrying about being athletic. Nope. You are asking me to come to terms with the fact that I can no longer live in the world of athletes. I am not ready for that at all.

The last few months have been a whirlwind of writing. I think the universe is finally giving me the level of work I need in order to fight my way to the level of success I want to have as a writer. Now the real work begins. I need to find a way to complete all of the work and do so without jeopardizing my day job. I also need to maintain enough food in the system in order to keep my ideas fresh and relevant.

I’d love to be like Richard Castle and work with a police detective (without the overt sexual tension, of course). I think being around that sort of thing stimulates the senses better than books. At the same time, books remind you of the form and function of fiction in a way that real life cannot.

To be a good writer you have to write. I’m glad to finally be doing so.

I’ve come to see leaders as a breed apart from the people who actually lead. The role of leader is one held by someone who is built to take the flak of social blame. Leadership itself happens in the trenches, sometimes directed by those with charisma or outstanding skill and at other times existing out of necessity when no one else steps up to do the job. The position and the philosophical lead are very different entities. This is true throughout the any levels of employment and social and family structurings. I’ve seen this from both sides of leadership and from the follower’s perspective, and I can say the view from below is often rosier than that from upon high. Each side comes with a set of responsibilities that are sometimes in conflict, but without both, no real work ever gets done.

I remember the first time I ever played roleplaying games. I was 12 at the time and I played with a friend and his older brother. I remember slipping into the guise of a medieval character and trying to earn a living as a swordsman. Even then there was the question of leadership. There were three of us in the party. Us two players and an non-player-character the dungeonmaster, my friends big bro, threw in as a way to keep us from getting killed in-game. If there had only been the pair of us it would have made no difference. When there is more than one then there is going to be a leader. I didn’t want the job–not directly. I wanted my friend to speak and deal with other NPC’s. Still I wanted the ability to direct from behind the scenes, offering helpful suggestions and ensuring our NPC was in the right position to see us all succeed. I was the ‘shadow leader’ or backseat driver. I could suggest and quietly tug at the strings of the lead, but it lacked the gravitas of being out front and taking flak for bad choices. I liked that. I continued to like and live as such through high school whereupon I discovered that sports team structures worked in the same fashion–if only in a more layered way. There was the Coach in charge, the team captain,and me, the guy who kept everyone following the team captain. Only, the role was largely diminished by the fact that the captain did his own thing, taking my suggestions the way a person takes a fly buzzing at his ear. I didn’t like that. I vowed to be an out front leader. Eventually I was.

I’ve talked a lot about how it felt to be the guy out in front of the team, especially in the educational setting. Leadership there is about social engineering. Your job is to build and maintain bridges and make your faculty and your administration look good while offering suggestions they can live with, or re-offering suggestions they already like and then pushing to move those things forward. It is no different in Education than it is in politics, where the leader is often a charismatic figurehead that serves as the front or faceman for the mess that generally lies just below the surface. The leader can make independent moves, but when you do so without 100% consent, it builds animosity and distrust. It is an untenable position that is worth every cent you get for it. Maybe I’ll try my hand at it again, but for now I am content being behind the scenes, trying to help everyone’s agendas align. That’s the kind of leadership I have the mind and patience for these days.

I spent the evening grading a slew of papers and wondering where the disconnect occurred. This is no comment on individuals but on the nature of schooling itself. I think it starts early with students being taught to respond to a select cadre of questions. They fall into these comfortable rhythms of question answer question to the point that if the question changes or is somehow left vague, they are unable to break from the routine and seek creative solutions. In short, we are training robots.

Perhaps robots is too strong. Semi-autonomous knowbots. I don’t know that I am at the point where I understand how to peel back the plastic coating and rework the wiring to prepare them for a future that frankly has nothing to do with what they learned in k-12. That is the job of course, but I am still working at it. When I finally get that magical formula to reconnect students to reality in a truly meaningful way, I am going to bottle it, sell it, and then straight quit the game.

See, job is journey. You work at achieving a goal and once done you move on to another. At least, that’s how I roll.

The flag football season came to an end today. I didn’t get to see the championship game, but we had our own championship game–a rematch between us and the only team to hand us a real beating. We played the Cowboys in a scoring fest that saw us score 48 vs their 38 and take the 4th win of this 7 game season. I would have preferred to go 5 -2 or even 6 -1, but that wasn’t the season we had. I am proud of the the four wins and proud of the way these kids toughed out the season. It took me a while to get it right on offense.

The 4-5 year old team, the Jets, did better this season. We went 6-1 with the loss coming to a team that we slugged it out with, but couldn’t put away. 36-30 was that final score. Not  the same this week as we went up and down the field scoring at will. Now comes the hard part. We need to figure out the MVP for that age and the two MVP’s for the older kids. As much as I want my kids to be recognized as MVPs I know that some other kids played better–at least on offense. I think my 8 yr old has a shot at MVP for the defense. He has at least a dozen more flag pulls than the next closest kid and with his speed he always had the plays going away from him. The 5 yr old should have easily won MVP, but he was sick for two games and lazy for two others. That gave a couple of others the chance to catch him.

March 5th is the team party for both teams. We’ll find out then.