Educational Discourse

I’ve been tagged by Lynn over at Learning. Goals – what do I have? Actually, I had to go Donald Taylor’s blog to see what he did. This led me to Ev Nucci’s blog where I found a series of very well explained goals. For those of you new into blogging, this is how you find new ideas and things to read. See, on Ev’s blog was the blog link to the person who started the meme plus the link to the person who tagged her. So, from this meme, I now have 3 new people to check out and see what they are doing. From them, who knows how many other blogs I’ll come across to which I will subscribe.

So, here is what I found to be the “official” rules for this meme:

I’m calling this one “Gotta’ Get Goals” to stay with our theme, and here are the official rules:

1) In a new blog post, list and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life. These have to be your best, most exclusive, and over-the-top goals that you can pick off your goals list. (I know I’ve previously said Do Not Share Your Goals, but we’re making an exception!)

2) In the introduction of your post, explain what you’re doing with the Gotta’ Get Goals project and “put a link and/or a trackback to this post”, for the purpose of giving them the full rules and for me to compile the master list of all participants that I’ll link to in a future post.

3) As with Simply Success Secrets, don’t forget to put a link or trackback to the blogger who tagged you for Gotta’ Get Goals in order to let your readers follow the conversation around.

4) Sharing your Gotta’ Get Goals with your own audience, will also share them with the blogger who tagged you and the bloggers you tagged, as well as their whole audience!

5) There is no limit to how many bloggers you are allowed to “tag”, so go crazy. It will help their exposure as well as your own when they tag back to your Gotta Get Goals post. That’s how meme’s work.

6) Sit back and enjoy the show. As Aaron would say, “watch the [gotta get goals] and the crossover audiences start rolling in!

Now, there are 10 goals that are listed plus a bunch of blogs that I will be visiting in the near future. That’s the great thing about memes!

So, my Gotta Get Goals! listed in no particular order.
1. Laugh – at myself, with friends, with my children, with students, with whomever I can. In the work that I do, it is important to have a sense of humour and not to take oneself too seriously. In fact, messing up and then laughing at it can be a great way to demonstrate your humanness.

2. Pray – daily. With my children and on my own. Make this a priority in my life.

3. Fitness – staying “in shape” so that I can participate with my children in all sorts of activities and be able to enjoy an active lifestyle later in life.

4. Continue Learning – each day be open to learning something new. Seek out new ideas and ways of doing things. Be actively involved in my own learning, not waiting passively waiting for someone to “do it to me!”

5. Enjoy each day – take time to look at the apple blossoms. Life speeds by and unless one makes a commitment to appreciating what is around, it is gone all too soon.

6. Spend time with my children – enjoy them, whatever stage of life they are at. Be with them not worrying about something that is grown-up. See the world from their perspective or at least try.

7. Listen – to people. Develop a sensitivity to hear what is not being said as well as what is being said. Hear past the words and practice letting my feelings go so they don’t overwhelm what is being said.

8. Career – Superintendent. This wasn’t one of my goals when I started. I really wasn’t sure what my goals were then. Now, I see that change in some areas needs to be supported from central office positions. The change doesn’t have to be initiated from top down but needs support in these key areas. Nothing against current people in these positions but it is time to look beyond what we are doing.

9.  Travel – learn by doing and seeing. I’ve just begun to travel internationally in the last few years. I spent 19 days in England 3 years ago and it was fabulous especially since I spent it with my wife with no children! I look forward to traveling to different places. I realize that these destinations don’t have to be exotic or far away but can be close to home. The whole idea is to go, see and participate.

10. Eat/drink healthy – what can I say. This is something that just makes like that much better. I don’t want to become a slave to my diet but I do realize that there are things that I need to do to help myself.

There they are in black and white. I have specifically tried to look at things wholistically. We sometimes just focus on goals for work, which are fine but they shouldn’t dominate our lives.

Tagging -   Susan Funk , missprofe, Steven Michaluk, Jeff Boulton, Kimberly Moritz, Carolyn Foote, Claudia Ceraso , Dean Shareski,  and Kimberley