Discussion: bad behavior

OK, so what's with all the cryptic hints about "bad behavior"? Have you been getting some golf clubs stuck up in trees?

Maybe he's driving by ice cream stands......that aren't on his way home.

No, just my usual angst in relation to my seemingly unavoidable and frequents bouts of self-evaluation, where the reviews are not always glowing. And if that's still a bit cryptic, perhaps that's on purpose.... :-)

I was talking a bunch to my niece, Alex, last weekend. She's been teaching 7th grade social studies in a very tough school in NYC, getting the job through the Teach America program, but being basically unprepared for it (no formal teacher training). She made it through the year. I'd guess she did pretty well, but she of course was feeling she could have done a lot better.

What I found interesting was the following -- she majored in soccer as a teen-ager, was in the Olympic Developement program, then played goalie for the University of Texas, one of the better programs in the country (top 20 but not top 10). She said through all this she had developed the ability to self-critique. She knew when she was doing something wrong. What she needed coaching for was in figuring how to fix it. In a similar way, she knew where her teaching needed improvment. Coming up with the fix was the problem, and in her case, the school administation was pretty useless. And she found that very frustrating.

I think I have a bit of the same going on, better at identifying the problem than finding the fix....

Maybe "finding the fix" comes with age?

On a more serious note, Atul Gawande's book called "Performance" is about making improvements (the context is medical, but the ideas translate pretty well to other environments).

Oh, and before I forget...the storm on the radar is very cool. Just seeing those images makes me think of Kansas (which is, as you know, very much like Western Mass.).

No - storms are very cool sometimes, but sometimes disrupting.

That storm track looks pretty tame by Midwest standards. I think PG would have to HTFU if he was to get much training done in the summer out here.

I remember moving to the midwest from NY in 1988 and experiencing my first real thunderstorm. I don't think I've ever been so scared before or since. And I was indoors the whole time!

I think PG would have to HTFU if he was to get much training done in the summer out here.

You've got that right. Thuderstorms, tornados, floods, heat, humidity, thick woods, thorns, bugs, spider webs, locusts, the plague. I think I'd need to HTFU just to live there, not to mention doing any training.... :-)

That's interesting about the self evaluation and finding the solution. I have found that finding a solution is not that hard, once the real problem has been identified. There is lots of info out there, you just have to ask the right question
Perhaps you all are good at seeing your own problems, but I see many who don't even know there is one to solve.