Education is a vital part of staying healthy. A healthy mind is a must for a healthy body. I enjoy education as much as I enjoy Computers and keeping my body as healthy as possible. Education comes in many forms. For our younger years, it usually comes as formal education. In later years it comes in the books and articles we read, the exploration we do in our own lives, additional education, and the guidance of friends and mentors. I love education in all forms. This section has two sub-sections, self and formal education. To grow, we need to learn to help ourselves and others through all means available to us. I wish you the curiosity and overall desire to keep learning as long as you are alive. Learning keeps us young.
Asking questions is an important part of education. To help students ask questions, in the United States students and teachers created the Ask a Stupid Question Day on the last Friday of September. Celebrate.
Self Education
Self Education is the key. In order to make the world better and those around us better, we need to start with ourselves first. Formal education is needed, but it is the personal education that will make us soar.
Personal
Personal Development comes from what we study and do. There are many varieties of personal education, but I will cover Practical Development and Technical education in this area.
Personal describes what we can do to make ourselves better people. Technical can overlap some with Practical Development, but I will distinguish it more for activities that produce useful products, such as software development. Practical Development is often referred to as manual/mental because much of it is done with the hands and mind. The reason I call it Practical Development is that it involves things each of us need to know/learn to grow. We are on earth to improve ourselves and to help others. As a person improves, he/she can become very skilled and start helping others more. Without practical knowledge, no one in the world would be able to get anything else done. Be grateful to those around you that possess basic, practical skills if you do not.
Technical
To do well in any field, you must be at least competent, and preferably an expert, in that field. I chose Computer Science as my field of expertise. I have enjoyed that since high school and I plan to continue to develop my skills in that area. In many ways, Technical Education is an extension of your Practical Development. There is a concern that female students are not given the same opportunities to excel in the technical areas (Science-Technical-Engineering-Mathematics) as were males. This used to be true, but now I see too many boys left behind in their technical education. Also, be good in the technical fields, you must have an appreciation and understanding of the arts. Because I believe strongly about this, I wrote an article entitled S.T.E.M. is now becoming S.T.E.A.M.
Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics
S.T.E.M. was the original program to help women enter the technical fields. I believe that Art needs to be included to give students a better understanding of humanity to master the technical fields. I believe the training should include men as well as women at that S.T.E.M. should be S.T.E.A.M.
Practical Development
What is “practical” to you? To me, it is anything that helps me live a better life and serve a higher purpose. Some are financial and some are personal development. If the material is presented in a good way, those two areas often overlap. What I would like is to start discussions on various topics on which I am interested. Some may have a religious emphasis, but all are based on concepts that help me grow. Instead of having separate pages, I will have a general overview here and then include links to blog pages. If you have thoughts about the material being covered, I would love to hear from you. Individual thoughts are on the linked blog pages. I would really enjoy discussions on those pages about the concepts presented. That way, I can go back to any person or concept and add further thoughts to it. It is amazing on how many of the great thinkers have spiritual roots for their thoughts. In the Western World, many of those thoughts come from the Bible.
Jim Rohn
Jim Rohn grew up on a farm and has been one of the greatest influencers on modern self-improvement experts. He joined a network marketing company early in his career and came up with the concept that everyone has a success rate for converting prospects to customers and clients. It was based on the parable that Jesus told about the “Sewer of the Seeds.” If you do enough work, you can do better than other people with a higher conversion rate. He also developed the philosophy that if you help others obtain what they want, you will achieve your dreams also. Related articles include:
John Wooden
John was awarded the Coach of the Century for his skills as a basketball coach. When asked about taking fifteen years to earn his first NCAA National Championship, he said that he was a slow learner, but he always remembered what he learned. John Wooden than went on to win ten of the next twelve championships. His philosophy was to “make every day your masterpiece.” Strive to be the best person you can be every day and you will not have regrets later. He never worried about other teams, never watched other team films, he just prepared his own team to be the best both individually and as a team and then let the other team worry about the game. John Wooden grew up in Indiana, which may explain some of his love for basketball. He went to a small high school which won one state championship and then lost a second when he missed a free throw, something he rarely did. That was one of the keys to his philosophy to go out and do your vary best, then let the results speak for themselves and to not worry about results that weren’t as desired if you did your very best.
Denis Waitley
Denis Waitley is one of the earlier proponents of mental attitude having a great impact on outcome. He has worked with many people from all walks of life to help them improve their performance. One of the biggest examples of the way his improving mental attitude works is with the Miami Dolphins perfect 17-0 year after they had come so close to their goal of winning the Super Bowl the previous years. He is a strong admirer of Jim Rohn.
John C. Maxwell
Another Midwestern influenced person, with the strong values that this upbringing provides. He is the son of a minister and a minister by occupation. This brings in the spiritual influences that have shaped his thoughts. The culmination of his thoughts, at least at this time, is Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters.
Roben Graziadei
Roben Graziadei is the latest addition to this list. Roben Graziadei came to IBMC College to give the faculty training through Net Result$, LLC. Roben’s training was excellent. It covered the very basics of how important using our Instincts is to making good decisions. We are the sum of our own experiences and what we have learned from those experiences.Roben’s mentors are Hyrum Smith and Steven R. Covey of Franklin-Covey. She worked with Franklin-Covey before joining Pearson, Inc. After many years of consulting executives and trainers across the country, she has realized how important GUT instincts are in making good decisions. Based on what she has learned, her new term is Instinctology. I look forward to seeing her website when it is ready and watching her grow as a consultant and trainer on the importance of using our GUT to make good decisions.
Formal Education
This is class room training of one type or another. The foundation is created in the K-12 grades. Beyond that, it can be done at various types of institutions or even on-line. For example, I attended Willamette University to earn by Bachelor of Arts degree with a Mathematics and Physics double major. I earned by California Teaching Credential at Sacramento State University, my Masters of Science in Computer Science from Indiana University, and my Principal License from Colorado State. That last degree required writing several papers. The following is a brief summary of my education.
Willamette University
University of Texas at El Paso
Sacramento State University
Indiana University
I had done quite a bit of work with computers before starting my Master of Science program. But all of it was writing in FORTRAN on Hollerith Cards. On arrival on Monday, my first assignment was to write five LISP programs using a terminal, saving and submitting these five programs on-line, with all of them turned into the instructor by Wednesday morning. It was a year that passed to quickly, graduating the summer following the summer I took the LISP and Pascal classes.
Colorado State University
After leaving Hewlett-Packard, I started my Principal Licensure Cohort at CSU. It was quite a shift from working with computers to working more with people. I learned many important skills during my time at CSU, including becoming a better author.
Colorado Early College – Fort Collins
CEC-FC is where I started teaching in 2017. It is a school designed to help students earn an Associates degree at the same time they earn their high school diploma. I am teaching computer science and mathematics.