In Memory of 7 Habits by Jeni Sidwell

When I was about 14 years old my dad was reading a book call 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  He would reference it often, using words like ‘Emotional Bank Account’ and ‘First things first‘. Not understanding what these phrases meant, I paid them no attention. Now that I am in my 30’s and have taken the time to thoroughly understand what these words mean, I realize my father was trying to improve himself and those around him. I want to explain what a few of these habits discussed in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey mean to me.

Habit 1: BE PROACTIVE

Instead of worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two categories: Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about such as their children, where they work, how they use their time. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. These are things they have little or no control over such as how their sister is raising their niece. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will… A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only.

I thought that I was doing well with what I felt was my circle of influence until I read this section. I find myself saying words like ‘I have to’ quite often. Apparently I need to evaluate what is causing me to say these words.

Habit 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day or project with a clear vision of a desired outcome. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life. It's about connecting with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Steven states that the best way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement that focuses on what you want to be and do. I have heard this often with self development programs and have found it effective when I am implementing it in my life.

Habit 3: PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

Putting first things first means getting your priorities straightened. Illustrated in his book are 4 quadrants categorized as important/urgent, important/not urgent, not important/urgent, and not important/not urgent. He advises us to spend as much time as we can in the important/not urgent quadrant. Again this is a habit I could work on.

Habit 5: SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD

To rephrase this would be: Try to understand how a person is feeling and put yourself in their shoes before expressing your own opinion. Sometimes you may never get to express your feelings because you change how you feel in the time it takes them to talk. I do recall my father truly doing his best to change from first being understood to first understanding. Human nature is to first be understood and we are often as children taught that our opinion is less valuable than our parents’. Before passing my father mastered this habit.

Steven R. Covey is a well of self-improvement knowledge all of us should be partaking of.

History Through Classics by Sara Sweet

In my childhood, history was a series of to-be-memorized dates and events strung together in a classroom and important only as a means to pass an upcoming test. Perhaps the re were some stories here and the re thrown in the cracks between dates and events, but somehow I didn’t come away with anything memorable (probably because the stories weren’t on the test). It all went in one ear and out the o the r, with some vague impressions of major events lingering in a misty timeline of US-centered history.

My first brush with history in a novel form was the book The Worst Hard Time, which related several true stories of experiences from the dust bowl era. Suddenly a part of history came alive to me. My grandfather had lived through this time on their Kansas farm. I felt the pangs of despair as I read of a mo the r unable to save her baby from the lethal dust-filled air despite draping the crib with damp sheets. I felt the trapped desperation of people unable to grow food or to relocate, but doomed to suffer and die from a man-made natural disaster. I felt hot anger against progressivists and speculators who had caused the disaster but not really suffered its devastating results as those did who fell prey to their schemes. I felt a new found appreciation for before scorned government programs intended to prevent the death and suffering experienced at this time from repeating in the future.

Another time, while reading about the life of Thomas Jefferson with my kids, I learned that this founding father had an affair with a slave woman who was a half-sister to his deceased wife, and that he himself had children with her who were considered and treated as slaves. These facts and others I read in some sections a book called Lies My Teacher Told Me, opened my eyes to both the shortcomings of idolized American heroes and the techniques employed by many historians to present the m as infallible icons. I also became aware that I knew very little history unrelated to US history, and realized than history isn’t benign, but charged with many subjective views.

I am currently reading Gone With the Wind, and this novel is presenting ideas and concepts to me in ways that no history book has ever done. Without asking outright, the story poignantly asks questions like, “What immoral acts were committed against southerners in the name of ending slavery? What alternatives could the re be to war? How does the actions and effects of the Civil War compare to o the r civil rights actions that have happened since the war?”  Questions like these are asked through the novel side by side with o the r questions of individual morality and actions.

In an engaging way, classics and historically-based literature can show us the way of life in different times, help us consider the motivations of parties involved in notable conflicts, make real the impact of events on individuals and nations. The Ku Klux Klan is rarely referred to with any sort of understanding or compassion as it is in Gone With the Wind, or the motives of its participants (such as powerlessness created by the governing Yankee officials who had stripped many southerners of many rights such as the right to vote or rely on officials for redress of wrongs) given any consideration. A novel can do so in a non-threatening way, without personal argument, but through a relation of experiences leading to actions. Before reading this book, my understanding of the Ku Klux Klan was limited to the disgusted, condemning variety of information and images about the m.

I am beginning to understand that every subject can be found in classic works, if one is reading between the lines of the story. There is math, science, language, and geography. History, in particular, is prevalent in many classics. Of course not all pictures of the past are historically accurate, and neither are the “facts” related by historians in history textbooks. I understand better now why the study of original documents is an important way to discover history, rather than relying only on the interpretations of o the rs. I am grateful for the expanded vision that classics have offered me about history and look forward to many more discoveries through reading classics.

Come Explore Europe on an Educational Tour

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I was Better after I had Cried

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.” 
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Is America a Communistic Country?

Karl Marx and Frederick Engles wrote these 10 planks of Communism in the 1840's.  Are we as Americans, on the road to Communism too?

1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work and the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

10. Free education for all children in government schools and abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form – combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Title Swap

The Compound Effect - Darren Hardy
Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party - The Epoch Times
All Joy and No Fun - Jennifer Senior
Therapeutic Storytelling - Susan Perrow
The Child Whisperer - Carol Tuttle
Boys Adrift - Dr. Sax
Strategic Relocation - Joel Skousen
Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims - Rush Limbaugh CD

Facts Are Stubborn Things

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

Title Swap

The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Family Method to College Ready by Age Twelve by the Hardings
And What About College?: How Homeschooling Leads to Admissions to the Best Colleges & Universities by Cafi Cohen
Founders and Prophets by Jeff and ShaRee Hymas
The Wright Brothers by Davie McCullough
Better Than Before, Happier at Home and The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand
Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
American Sniper by Chris Kyle
The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe

The Talent Code

As a hard-core-Suzuki-violin-mother of four violinists, I came across this title at a Summer Suzuki Institute camp.  Both of the teacher trainers talked about this title to the parents.  I thought, hum... I need to see the book for myself.  I bought a copy and read it a year ago.  This last year our practicing has gone to a whole new level of deep and effective practicing.  I may dare even say that my children made more progress in this last year, than the did in the 3 years prior of practicing.  I began video recording our teachers' (Suzuki and Fiddle) lessons.  We studied every sound and every gesture that our music mentors made.  My children started to study the very Essence of what made their teachers so great.  It worked. They are playing more beautifully than ever.  This book  is a fascinating read that can help you with any Talent you want to develop.  Enjoy some of my favorite quotes.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. —W. B. Yeats” 

“The sweet spot: that productive, uncomfortable terrain located just beyond our current abilities, where our reach exceeds our grasp. Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions.” 

“According to a 1995 study, a sample of Japanese eighth graders spent 44 percent of their class time inventing, thinking, and actively struggling with underlying concepts. The study's sample of American students, on the other hand, spent less than 1 percent of their time in that state. “The Japanese want their kids to struggle,” said Jim Stigler, the UCLA professor who oversaw the study and who cowrote The Teaching Gap with James Hiebert. “Sometimes the [Japanese] teacher will purposely give the wrong answer so the kids can grapple with the theory. American teachers, though, worked like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class kept gliding along. But you don't learn by gliding.” 

“Although talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we have more potential than we might ever presume to guess.” 

― Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else

Title Swap

The Bronze Bow- Elizabeth George Spear
Calico Captive - Elizabeth George Spear
Jon Schmidt Music Lessons - Piano Guys
The Blue Caste - Lucy Maude Montgomery
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloo
The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Family's Method to College Ready by Age Twelve