9. June 2011 by admin.

When is a loss more valuable than a win?

I have spent this week with nine incredible young men, part of a much larger group of other incredible young men. I was supposed to be helping them have a good time at Cub Scout Day Camp, not the other way around.

We play a game throughout the week called Capture the Flag. It’s as simple as it sounds, for the most part, but there are some rules that protect each den’s flag when they are at activities so that the kids can focus on the activity without worrying about losing their flag. For most of the week our flag has been well guarded by our den. (“Den Ten—Seminole Winds” is our den cheer.) We almost left it behind at the archery range but one of our guys was fleet-footed enough to recover it before the next den up realized that we had left it. Thursday afternoon, disaster struck. As we were all listening to our instructor explaining the flyway corridor nearest to our area, someone from another den, or perhaps a staff member, they’re known to be devious as well, removed our flag from its safety spot and took it to the staff area.

Den Ten was collectively livid. They asked the staff why the safety spot didn’t protect the flag from being stolen, while we were in our activity area. The explanation that we weren’t paying attention was not satisfactory to the den, because that was the whole point of the safety spot. I think the reason our flag was stolen is because up till that time it hadn’t been.

There came a time to explain to my den that we simply weren’t going to win this one. We needed to accept the situation as good sports, sing a song in payment for its return, and move forward. Of course the injustice didn’t sit well with our boys who have played by the rules, often at my insistence, but nonetheless played by the rules. I really haven’t had any issues about “playing by the rules,” but there were many instances of clarification on the rules, and to their credit, when any of my guys had any question as to whether a flag was “fair game,” they did ask.

Many of our Achievement activities come with a requirement to complete a Character Connection to the rest of the activities. The game of Capture the Flag, at least today’s events pursuant to it, came with its own Character Connection. Tomorrow I will have an opportunity to gather my guys for one final round of fun, and I want to explain to them that while winning is fun, sometimes it comes with a price that is simply too high to pay. When that price is our integrity, the loss has more value. When a win causes irreparable damage to a relationship, the loss has more value. When we learn more from a loss than we would from a win, the loss has more value.

And I owe Den Ten a debt of gratitude for helping me remember that.

Thanks, guys. I will never forget these five days.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

14. May 2011 by admin.

What an awesome four years I had at my job. And I do not use the word awesome lightly. But God has decided that He and I are about to write a new chapter in my book.

I wanted to put this down so that I can “share” and so that I can clarify my awareness of what I’m feeling. That’s too touchy-feely for me on a normal day, but emotions can have a paralyzing effect on us, even when everything is “okay.” Right now I feel kind of like I’ve just had this incredible adventure, maybe Indiana Jones-style in a cave or jungle, and suddenly I’m standing at the edge of the jungle or the mouth of the cave, and I’m okay, everything is intact and I’m safe and healthy and we’re all here and accounted for, but the looming question is “Now what do I do?”

After four years of the frenetic pace of getting up at 4:15 every morning to fight a losing battle with getting to work by 8 (Thanks to University of South Alabama and its immensely popular football program and the increased enrollment it garnered, glad it’s a success but …); dealing with the illnesses and injuries that go with raising active kids, and working such a distance from where they spend their days; wanting to fulfill my duties to God; wanting to keep the boys active and on schedule to activities that matter to them and to us; the neverending burning desire to learn something new, to ALWAYS be learning something new; trying desperately and unsuccessfully to keep my house in a state where I could invite a visitor in; I now find myself with all day on my hands for the time being.

The danger here is that I find myself with all day on my hands. Yes, I have a long list of things I want to accomplish. But if I don’t hold myself accountable to someone it will be easy to allow one simple task to fill the whole day. It can also be very easy to slip into depression, not because I feel so bad to not be working, but because there isn’t a compelling drive to get a particular task done. This is an insight into who I am, if you never knew that about me before. I know that I will have plenty of time in the morning to get the school clothes ready. But if I let that take hold of me, the laundry won’t get done and it will sit in baskets in my bedroom forever.

I also have to take care that I don’t let my long list of things I want to accomplish keep me from looking for the next employment opportunity, if that’s where I’m being led. I need to do all I can do, and let Heavenly Father show me, if not THE path, then at least what I need to know about each available path, so that I can make the best choice for my family.

I’m a doer. It’s who I am. I have to have something productive to engage me, otherwise I will sit all day and watch movies. It’s part of the duality of ADD and OCD fighting it out in the same body and psyche. There’s some purpose in it, even if that purpose is to train me to deal with it. I haven’t done so well so far.

So I’m turning the page, and picking up the pen. And thanks to so many wonderful contributors to the chapter I just finished. You know who you are.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

31. March 2011 by admin.

Regardless of intentions, when “benefits” harm more than they help, they lose the status of being “beneficial.”  For example, have you ever given thought to QUOTAS?  I don’t mean production quotas, or sales quotas, I mean hiring quotas or admission quotas.  Have you ever had any interaction with an organization that had to meet a personnel or admission quota? The stated intention of quotas is to “level the playing field.”  The resulting implication is that the intended beneficiaries under the quota are sub-standard, that they otherwise could not have gained entry to that playing field. They just aren’t good enough, so we had to make sure they could be good enough by changing what constitutes “good enough,” by lowering the standard. How did you feel when you met someone who qualified for the quota? Did you wonder if that person was there only because of the quota, that maybe they just weren’t otherwise “good enough?”

That’s what teachers’ unions are doing to the teaching profession.

In my whole life, I have met maybe three “bad” teachers. They probably weren’t always “bad.” They were probably burned out on having to deal with things that should have been dealt with by others.  There are teachers teaching who should not be. We all know there are; every profession has members who should be doing something else. But the stranglehold that the teachers’ unions have over the boards of education prevents those boards from relieving the school system of a bad teacher and replacing him/her with one that is worthy of the title. If we knew that the school board had the authority to fire bad teachers, and that the board didn’t need to be afraid to USE that authority, we could be assured that ALL our teachers excel at their craft, that they all demonstrate excellence, and that every teacher at our children’s schools are worthy of our admiration.

Because we know that even bad teachers can’t be fired for just being bad teachers, we also know that there must be bad teachers somewhere in our schools—there must be, because our school board can’t risk firing them. And also because we do know that there are bad teachers in our schools, unfortunately, the entire profession falls under quota ambiguity.  Every year I have to wonder if this is the year that my child gets a teacher who should be doing something else but hasn’t yet committed the nearly only offense for which they could be justifiably dismissed (sexual misconduct with a student).

Yelling and screaming at kids evidently is not a signal that a teacher might be in the wrong profession. Passing kids who can’t do grade-level work, evidently, is also not reason enough. Day after day of worksheets instead of interactive educational activities, movies instead of lessons, busywork homework instead of assignments that genuinely measure a student’s grasp on the material, these also apparently don’t indicate that a teacher may be inappropriately employed. Or maybe they do, but it doesn’t matter; the union says it’s not grounds for dismissal. If the board of education chooses to fight that fight, the union makes sure it sucks the school system dry of funds to use for such luxuries as—oh, I don’t know, education maybe? It’s a threat that need not be spoken aloud: You can fight this, but you know that we can make it so expensive that you don’t want to.

Teachers, this is not fair to you, and I can’t understand why you stand for it. The esteem rendered to the entire profession becomes reduced to the lowest common denominator. There are a lot of things that the boards of education need to do to render to your profession the respect it deserves, but until YOUR UNIONS release their death grip over the presiding authorities, you will have no better than you have now. They are not protecting you from us, they are controlling YOU by telling you that they are acting in your best interest. You need to examine fully their actions and their words to see that they are inconsistent with your best interest. Take whatever money your union can squeeze out of us for you, and fully understand that because the money is not the real issue, as long as YOUR UNIONS make it the primary issue, the focus will stay diverted from the things that communities can do to provide the kinds of experiences you got into teaching for.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

9. March 2011 by admin.

Oh, my goodness, I started writing a blog post on the Constitution. I quickly found that I will never be able to keep it to blog-post-length.

This is in part because I seriously love the document itself, and partly because I love the language with which it is written.

There are several things I want to touch on. One is the concern/accusation that it is obsolete. Another is that it is too difficult to amend. And yet another is to clarify some misconceptions held in regard to it.

I think these are going to be done in short bursts of research and writing. Otherwise I’ll end up with a full blown book that would be a duplication of efforts published before.

So what is something you’ve always wondered about the Constitution of the United States? I’ll dig it up and toss it out on the table, with any and all legal opinions and challenges, and I’ll add my own understanding and feelings, making sure that you can tell where the research leaves off and my opinion begins.

Where should I begin?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

3. March 2011 by admin.

It is a rare thing for me to have an opinion on a sports-related topic. This topic, however, is much less sports-related and much more values-related. I am referring to the dismissal of Brandon Davies from the BYU Cougars for violations of the school's honor code.