This are my notes from Dr. Lynell Burmark’s presentation at TCEA 2007 on 2/9/2007.
Lynell’s website: www.educatebetter.org
All of us know that just because you fail one test you are not a failure, right?!
Hopefully we’ll have some laughs and some serious moments today
- also we will talk about some tools we can use to deal with stress
Book “Enlighten Up! An Educator’s Guide to Stress-Free Living”
- there may be a few of you who don’t need to be here, so if you need to give me a walking ovation that is no problem
Cartoon: teacher at the front: No talking, smiling, wearing weird clothes, more….
One rule: “If you’re having fun, you’re not learning”
- motto from the Disney movie, “Mathilda”
Surveys have showed that when we are stressed, 9 out of 10 times stress complaints have to do with TIME
- putting your schedule on a palm won’t solve your problems
- picture of someone’s hand with appointments written all over it!
To Do: Can Do. Will Do. Must Do and Deep Do list
Cartoon: “Due to airline cost-cutting, this is your dinner, pillow and air sickness bag”
Advertisements have us convinced “we are entitled” to everything money can buy
- images of diamonds, real estate, Porsche cars, etc.
- and entitlement of a place to keep it
- conflict between these messages and our paychecks
I used to work at at California’s service center
- image of huge house
- now: picture of a house on the back of a truck
- computers and phones situated in the bathroom, with a padded toilet seat
Testing, testing
- another area of great stress for
- reducing our kids to #2 pencils
Gary Stager had a movement at one point called “Pencils Down”
When you are stressed, the cortisol shrinks the
- their brains are 14% smaller (literally) and physiologically
- so we are literally making kids more stupid with all this stress
Techno Trauma: sometimes it can drive you nuts
Image of a computer monitor thrown out of a high rise building
Cartoon asking expecting parents if they want to email their zygote!
Technology is there at all the major events of your life
- groom leaving the church, saying to another woman dressed in a wedding gown: “Didn’t you get my email?”
Cartoon of console with login and username at the gates of heaven!
This technology was supposed to save us time
- how many of us spend 8 hours a day at a computer
- my record was 22 hours one day
Dogs on the computer: “Let’s see if we can’t scatter the trash all over his desktop”
- image of a desktop filled with files
Kids have no stress with technology or angst
- using the Pearson knowledge box in Southern California: kids lining up to use the computer during their recess time
You can use technology to make things more visual, that can be much less stressful for many learners
- for me math didn’t make as much sense when it was just numbers, but when you can
the “figure this” math site does things visually
- company “mind institute” in the exhibit hall is focused on visual math
Activity you can replicate: Progressive Story
- make a PPT slideshow with fullscreen images, and pass the kush ball and have people tell a story light you would tell a flashlight story
- example
- this can be used to test prior knowledge, to review, can even be used as the test
- I love this creative idea!!!
- this progresive story idea and
those who put the toilet paper over rather than under make an average of $32,000 more per year
Serious definition of stress: “stress is not the presence of something, it is the ABSENCE of something”
[THIS IS AN INTERESTING DEFINITION. ACCORDING TO THE FLOW AUTHOR STRESS IS A PERCEPTION.]
Stress is the absence of resourcefulness
- continuums of dark — light, stress — resourcefulness
- stress is a guage of PERCEIVED personal resources
[GOOD, I'M GLAD THIS INCLUDES THE IDEA OF PERCEPTION]
In WWII orgpanages, they would give kids a piece of bread at dinner and the kids would squirrel it away
- the psychologists learned if they gave them 2 pieces, they would eat one and save one
- they were perceiving that there wouldn’t be bread in the morning
The Dell Booth yesterday had bubbles
- a bubble bath is good for stress relief
- there are times when medication is called for, certain situations (I don’t want to make light of that, but if that becomes a lifestyle that can be a problem)
Cartoon: “The St. John’s Wort seems to be working, but be carful on the dosage”
Cartoon of dog with his feet in a jacuzzi tub
Snickers bars: there are as many fat calories are there are in 100 apples, so that’s a no brainer: Who has time to eat 100 apples?
Will Smith: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people the don’t like.”
Closet organizing ads
- you just have 4 or 5 choices tops
- somewhere between that level of organization and where we are now would be good
I have a new rule: if I buy one new thing, I have to donate five things I have now
Image of a backpacker with a loaded pack, and a TV on top
“What you aren’t willing to give away OWNS you”
Chronic overcrowding in the standards
- Even Robert Marzano who has made a fortune talking and writing about the standards admits we would need a K-22 system to teach them all
- Power Standards” book: says let’s get them down to the ones we really need
“Ask 3 before you ask me” is a good motto in the computer lab
- this empowered the kids, and freed him up
- the kids who are “the three” end up being teachers, we prepare the next generation
Image of Michael Jordan and the passion of making the shot
- he said: “Once the ball leaves my hands, it’s out of my hands” (he didn’t have to watch the basket)
- the ultimate “let it go”
Goeth: “Nothing shows a man’s character than what he laughs at”
humore: the juxtaposition of the unexpected (John Cleese)
Cartoon of a parent mouse in a robe talking to kids: “You were turned into white horses and forced to drive a pumpkin? out after midnight, and that’s the best story you could come up with?!”
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people: Victor Borge
- if you have an enemy or you want someone to help you, get them laughing
Kids laugh an average of 400 times per day
- by the time we are adults, we laugh around 15 times per day on average
Hopefully you’ll leave here and work on boosting your average
Tip: if you stick a number 2 pencil… in your mouth, it forces the corners of your mouth up a little so whatever you say will likely make you smile or laugh because your mouth is prepped
- you can also find a pencil when you need it
- this can also address disruption issues
Cartoon: farmer who made a scarecrow of his wife in the field
When you do cruel humor, you get an energy spike but then you dive
- you get briefly juiced but a bad aftertaste
- so use humor that isn’t cruel
The birthday card that says: On they day you were born the angels got together and said:
- Who messed up on quality control?
Between the lion’s series: a BB King series on the letter Y
- great show
Chateau MeddyBemps great website, whimsical humor
- great website esp for younger kids, up to 4th or 5th grade, esp good for
www.amazing-kids.org
Kid cartoon: “I’m never having kids. I hear they take nine months to download.”
I’ve given up on good internet joke sites, because most are ta
ahajokes.com
Clips from TV shows
- the old Cosby shows, the humor was always so sweet
- Bill and his wife on the show discussing if he remembers what he said when he proposed, and what was on the car radio
Shows the power of music
- what you remember, esp in highly emotional moments
- music can be used as a carrier of information to learners
The music of the spheres defined by Pythagoras: the music of the sun and the wind through the trees
Video clip of dramatizing “entrianment” – “toe tapping,” what happens when music plays and rhythm takes over our bodies
having a pet can lower your blood pressure
- a teacher’s smiling face can change the whole day for a child
- having friends you teach with can make such a difference
First connection in life: mother-child
- chemical oxy-tocin (the love hormone)
- that is the last to go in human life
“The heart of the matter”
- physiologically we have a brain in the heart, that sends messages to the brain
- stress or panic, and love / caring / compassion / appreciation
- when you are feeling those positive emotions
- you can only feel 1 kind of emotion at the same time
the fastest way of stress is to think of something you are deeply thankful for, because you can’t think about that and maintain your stressful thought
- think of something that brings tears to your eyes, something really deep
- that will flood your heart and move to your brain, and then you’ll realize you do have a couple resources
- shift your focus really fast from that stressful thing to something you’re thankful for
solution to the whole problem is to shift emphasis
Verse: in all things be thankful
- not “for” all things, that is saying no matter what happens, find the thankfulness in your heart and you’ll be able to rise above the circumstances
Have your kids write a thank you note if they are stressed out
THANK YOU is the big key
- this shows up scientifically, their are salivia tests and PET scans
If you have love, compassion in your heart, it can be felt within a 15 foot radius
- your students can feel what you are feeling
- do you want your students to
Your attitude is always key: you can always choose that
- you can choose who you want to be
cartoon: Moses as a kid, parting the milk
Steve CAse, founder of AOL had multiple paper routes because he knew there were many
Helping kids figure out what they want to be is very exciting
book “what color is your parachute” author says when you are in your highest calling, that is where your greatest passion and the world’s greatest need come together
Lifting kids with humor is hopefull
www.drewtretick.com music
- watch his face as he performs in this video
- playing with passion
My prayer for all of you, that you find this sense of mission and purpose
Technorati Tags: burmark, stress, tcea, tcea07, tcea2007
On this day..
- Visualizing Sharing #edushare - 2012
- Create iPad Stories with StoryPatch - 2011
- Podcast 370: Cool Tools for the Classroom by Dr Carl Owens #msmeca11 - 2011
- Cool Tools for the Classroom by Dr Carl Owens #msmeca11 - 2011
- Leading Schools with Digital Vision in a Bubblesheet World (Slidecast) #msmeca11 - 2011
- To what countries have you Skyped? (from Mississippi) #msmeca11 - 2011
- Outsourcing school district IT staff - 2010
- Online learning at Crescent, Oklahoma - 2010
- Teaching more content with an IWB is not transformational - 2010
- Bribery apparently not a "new argument" for the Oklahoma Supreme Court - 2010
