https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/10/how-to-have-more-energy/
This is how to have more energy:

• Meaning: Do things that benefit others. Effective “job crafting” starts by looking at how much time you dedicate to specific tasks that give you energy each day. When university call center employees who were asking alums for donations got to meet the scholarship students who benefited from their work, productivity, enthusiasm and the amount of money coming in went up dramatically.
• Interaction: Be 80% positive. (I am 99% certain of this.) People consistently said that the most positive times in their lives all had to do with belonging and connecting -- not achieving. When researchers ask people to reconstruct the most positive and negative experiences of their lives, they consistently describe social events as their most influential memories over a lifetime. “In short, it was the moments of connecting to others that touched people’s lives the most.” 

  My team’s research found that people who reported having great interactions throughout the day were nearly four times as likely to have very high well-being.

  
  How can you guarantee that? Make close pals at work. But how do you know if you're really friends with someone at the office?
  
  Ask yourself how much you share your personal problems with each other.
  The telltale sign of a friendship between co-workers was the amount of time they spent talking about topics unrelated to work. Then the next phase, a very close friendship at work, was marked by something less intuitive: sharing problems from one another’s personal and work lives.
• Health: Eat better, move more, sleep long and well. A 2014 study suggests that highly processed foods with added sugar may also contribute to laziness. Even “comfort foods” like baked goods actually have the opposite effect of comfort and are likely to make people more depressed. When people exercised moderately for 20 minutes they felt better... for up to 12 hours. So get to the gym early and you can boost your mood for almost the entire day.
  

  When researchers assigned one group of participants in a study to do 20 minutes of a moderate-intensity workout, they found that the participants had a much better mood immediately following the exercise than a control group who did not exercise. What surprised researchers was how long this increase in mood lasted. Those who exercised continued to feel better throughout the day. Even two, four, eight, and twelve hours later, they were in a better mood than the control group.

  While many concentrated on his findings relevant to 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, the other factor that differentiated top performance was sleep.  

The importance of friendships for only children cannot be overemphasized. 

From Arne Duncan's "How Schools Work":

Our sixth graders are not given any assignments. They are given coloring pages,  scissors, construction paper, and tape. A good day wasn't a day when they mastered fractions, or learned how a bill gets turned into a law. A good day was a day when no one got hurt.
There was no homework. We changed that from the very beginning, giving these kids assignments, to train them everyday after school, putting in long hours to bring the academics up to grade level.

- We found that categories had to slide one slot to the right. The kids who were in "exceeds standards", were actually just meeting the standard.

- we don't need rote knowledge anymore, we have the Internet for that. What we need are kids who can learn anything and continue to be able to learn for the rest of their lives. We need kids who can think, not just recall. We need kids were comfortable solving problems in the group, working together, supporting and challenging each other, and bringing out the best thinking in everyone.

-

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/05/the-last-damn-thing-youll-ever-need-to-read-a/

Achieving Goals: Everything You Need To Know

Huh? Set goals? Why?

• Setting goals can improve your life. Goal setting is one of the four techniques the military used to increase Navy SEAL passing rates from 25% to 33%.
• Studies have also shown it makes you happier.

How do you set goals?

• Initially, the research says, aim high. Set ambitious goals. (But later on down the road don’t be afraid to settle to be happy.)

• Keeping goals vague sometimes produces higher rates of success but being specific will prevent procrastination.

• Structure your goals so that the focus is to learn and improve, not to outdo someone else. The former helps you grow. The latter can turn you into a jerk.
• 
  
• If you really have no idea what you want, imagine your funeral. In his famous Stanford commencement speech Steve Jobs said: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” And science agrees with him.

What are the first steps in moving toward your goals?

• Write them down. Writing about goals makes you happier and makes you more likely to follow through with them.
• Sometimes the best way to figure out how to do something is to focus on why you want to do something.

• Grease the wheels for any behavior change by manipulating your context.

• Don’t look at goals like a death march. Putting some time into making them fun is both more enjoyable and more effective.

• Make the first couple milestones easy. Track your accomplishments on a chart. Do anything so that you can see progress because nothing motivates you more than seeing progress.

How do I keep going and not give up?

• Use checklists to make sure you’re accomplishing everything. They work. And depending on your goal sometimes you don’t need a “to-do list”, you need a “not to-do list.”

• Do NOT fantasize about achieving your goal. That’s eating dessert first and saps motivation. Thinking about what you have to do to prepare for a challenge was more likely to lead to success than imagining the victory.

• The secret to avoiding goal-induced stress is more planning. This reduces random factors that can throw a wrench into things and knock you off course.

• You can measure progress by how much you’ve completed or how much you have left to do. Research says you’ll be more motivated if you focus on whichever of those two is smaller.

• Understand the steps to expert performance. Keep in mind the lessons from Daniel Pink’s excellent book on the science of motivation, Drive. Know the techniques the Army uses to instill mental toughness.

What are 5 things that make achieving goals easier?

1. Make a step-by-step plan.
2. Tell other people about your goal.
3. Think about the good things that will happen if you achieve your goal.
4. Record your progress (e.g., in a journal or on a chart).

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/08/is-it-better-to-start-off-with-ambitious-goal/

Consumers who set ambitious goals have a greater level of satisfaction compared to those who set conservative goals

“The moral of the story is don’t sell yourself short,” Cho said. “Aim high.”

From https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/09/how-to-quit-bad-habits/

Here’s how to quit bad habits without willpower:

• Gratitude: The same feeling that energizes us to do good for others can help us do good for ourselves. See positive things as blessings; don’t take them for granted. And then write them down.
• Compassion: The emotion that drives us to help others can also benefit “future you.” Crazy as it sounds, write a letter to “future you.” Feel some compassion for the difficult situations you often put him/her in and you’ll boost self-control.
• Pride: Combined with an appreciation for the hard work and support that goes into any achievement, this deadly sin can be a virtue. Keep track of your accomplishments and you’ll end up more disciplined.

From quora
https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-have-attended-an-elite-school-and-then-be-an-utter-failure-afterward

So, even when things get so bad you don't know if life is worth living, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Try to immerse yourself in an activity that makes you happy. Life will work itself out. You are not a failure, and neither was I.

 

From : Ancient Wisdom Reveals 7 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

Step Back

What do the people we hold up as icons do? Well, James Bond doesn't hop up and down when he beats Blofeld and he doesn't cry for his mom when henchmen shoot at him. He's not emotionless -- he's in control of his emotions. Plain and simple: he's less reactive to his external circumstances. The events around him do not dictate his behavior. He decides how he will respond.

When you're reactive, you give up free will.  Impulsive rarely has a positive connotation; it's pretty much synonymous with bad decisions.

So when something happens and triggers a strong emotional response, step back. Take a deep breath and let your thinky-brain decide if throwing your laptop against the wall is the best way to cope with slow internet speeds.

We make better decisions when we see thoughts and feelings as just that: thoughts and feelings. They are not "you" and you don't have to act on them.

So what should we do? Well, when you feel those strong emotions well up, followed by a desire to do something extreme -- pause. The stronger the emotions and the more urgent the desire to act, the more skeptical you should be and the more you want to hit the brakes.

At first, just give yourself a count of five. You want to extend your ability to feel the feelings without acting on them, fighting them or denying them. They will dissipate. It never seems like they will in the moment (and that's why feelings are so powerful) but they will dissipate.

Acceptance
The Stoics were control freaks.... They were very serious about control, yes, but serious meaning that 99% of the time you don't have any. And you better get used to it.

All you can truly control is your deliberate thoughts.

And Buddhism is big on "not clinging." When you cling to your desires and expectations -- you suffer. We must accept that life is not always going to give us what we want. When we give up trying to control things we can't, we feel better.

Why be unhappy about something if it can be remedied? And what is the use of being unhappy about something if it cannot be remedied?

When your opponent gets the advantage in a game, don't waste time shouting, "That should not have happened!" They do their thing and you respond, doing the best you can to improve your situation.


Feeling Is The Only Way Through

The Stoics are stereotyped as suppressing their emotions, but their philosophy was actually intended to teach us to face, process, and deal with emotions immediately instead of running from them. Tempting as it is to hide from a powerful emotion like grief— awareness and understanding are better. That means facing it now. Process and parse what you are feeling. Remove your expectations, your entitlements, your sense of having been wronged. Find the positive in the situation, but also sit with your pain and accept it, remembering that it is a part of life. That’s how one conquers grief.

(Mindfulness is) "The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally." - "learning how to stabilize attention and dwell in a lucid space of non-reactive awareness."

And that's a technique we can easily use. You imagine the worst possible scenario, feeling it as realistically as possible, and, with time, find that its power over you shrinks and shrinks.

We are happiest and most effective when our minds cease to be time travelers and stay focused on the here and now.


And modern research by Harvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbertshows that a wandering mind is not a happy mind:


So what should we do? Catch yourself in the act. This is your new game to play. Check in with yourself. "Is my attention focused on the here and now?

Mindfulness is meditation writ large. In meditation, you focus on your breath, your attention wanders, and you return your attention to the breath. Over and over. And in living a mindful life, you're focused on the present, your mind wanders, and you return it to the present. Over and over.

People Are Ridiculous. Love Them Anyway.

No. You're not perfect. They're not perfect. Be patient. Be compassionate. Don't judge. Help.

 If we’re more accepting, more peaceful, less judgmental, less selfish, then the whole world is that much more loving and peaceful, that much less judgmental and selfish. Of necessity, how we are affects everyone around us.
 Outside of your genetics, relationships are #1 when it comes to happiness-makers.

My empirical study of well-being among 1,600 Harvard undergraduates found a similar result—social support was a far greater predictor of happiness than any other factor, more than GPA, family income, SAT scores, age, gender, or race.
So how do we boost our empathy and compassion and improve our relationships?

The great Stoic Hierocles said to treat everyone as family and you will come to see them as such. And, similarly, what attitude does the Dalai Lama take when dealing with others?

"Trying to treat whoever he meets as an old friend."

Sum Up

Focus on the present: Regret might be back there. Anxiety might be up ahead. But what is really bothering you right now? So spend more time in the now.
People are ridiculous. Love them anyway: The only people who are perfect and always make sense are people you don't know very well. Treat people as old friends and often they will become just that.

Gratitude.

Gratitude toward others and gratitude for this life with all its ups and downs. So accept it all, love it all, be grateful for it all.

From "change anything"  - kerry patterson etc

Scientific strategy 1: Identify crucial moments
When it comes to personal change, you don't have to be pushing yourself to the Limit all the time. You need to focus on only a handful of moments when you're most at risk. We call these crucial moments. These are the moments of truth that could the results you want- if you could get yourself to enact the right behaviors.

As you search for your own crucial moments, consider whether they come at certain times, places, around certain people or when you're in certain physical or emotional states.

Scientific strategy 2: Create vital behaviors
Once you identify your crucial moments, your next task is to create the rules you follow when Temptation pays you a visit.
Research shows that if you establish rules in advance of facing a challenge, you are far more likely to change your behavior when the crucial moment hits. Instead of facing each instance as a unique event calling for new choice, you've already decided what you do. And you're far more likely to comply.
When it comes to personal change you want to set specific rules and not vague guidelines.

Human beings are notoriously myopic. By contemplating the pleasure a good habit will eventually yield, we can make the Habit itself more enjoyable. When we take the effort to consider the long-term effects of our actions, we can overcome our hard-wired short-term bias.

Tactic 1: Visit your default future
Your default future is the life you live if you continue behaving as you currently are. Glimpses into worst-case scenarios propel people to change.

Tactic 2: Use value words

at a rehab center, they teach prisoners to link their actions to their values. We talked about showing respect for those who will sit at this place at the table. You're not just setting a table you're working as part of a team. You carrying your fair share of the work. You're not letting people down. You're becoming trustworthy. It's values values values all the time.

Stop obsessing over the unpleasant aspects of what you're required to do. Youre sacrificing so that you'll be mobile and playing with your grandkids.

Tactic 3: Make it a game
A game has three important design elements: Limited time, a small challenge, a score.

By breaking the goal into small wins, setting a limited time frame i'm developing a meaningful way of keeping score you can turn something noxious into something surprisingly motivating.
Love what you hate by turning a tough task into a game.

Summary: Love what you hate
As you work on your change effort, rid yourself of the notion that Success will require a lifetime of self-denial. You can learn to love what you hate.


If you'd like to ask several new friends at once, join associations made up of people who are working on the same problem you're trying to conquer. We were friends, I didn't know he was involved in the same program. We became close friends and bounced things off one another and encouraged each other all the time.

Distance yourself from the unwilling;
Distance yourself from individuals who repeatedly enCourage or enable your bad habits.

Do not underestimate the role fans, coaches and accomplices play in your life.

Cheap good things close and convenient, and bad things distant and difficult.
If you want to exercise more, workout equipment conveniently close in your bedroom or living room. Wear your workout clothes to sleep. Moving a temptation just a few feet away can have a huge impact.

Meet laziness a tool in your change. Humans have a default bias. We would rather not mess with things once they're arranged. Set up positive defaults. You can set things on autopilot and then count on your tendency to go with the flow.

Change cues; are there places you can put up reminders that will help keep you on track.

When baked goods were around Mary would stick to fruit or a granola bar, mary would go to bed at 10 p.m. so She wouldn't be too tired to exercise in the morning.

Human being judge much of the life experience not on the totality of the entire experience, but on the basis of the last few minutes.  Actions that occur less than 2% of the time affect the other 98%.


be the scientist and the subject. Explore your own successes and failures.

Investing Cheat sheet

My favorite bits from:  "The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Investing by James Altucher"

So why should anyone listen to me about investing? You shouldn’t.  The most important three words in investing is: “I don’t know”. When you go into a job you NEVER lose money. If you show up for two weeks, you get paid. You might get fired but they won’t take your money. The stock market TAKES your money on bad days. Sometimes it takes a lot of your money. We’re not used to the brutality of that and it can destroy a person psychologically, which makes one (me) trade even worse. I told you about: #1. Pick some stocks and hold them forever. Since “I don’t know” applies, it’s almost impossible to pick the right ones. E) What stocks should I hold? ( A friend of mine who knows Buffett told me my book was the only book that Buffett thought was accurate about him).  I would add to that, based on what Warren does. It seems to me he has five criteria: A company will be around 20 years from now. At some point, company’s management has demonstrated in some way that they are honest, good people. If you can get to know management even better. The company’s stock has crashed for some reason. The company’s name is a strong brand: American Express, Coke, Disney, etc. Demographics play a strong role.  G) SHOULD I PUT ALL OF MY MONEY IN STOCKS? No, because you’ll never know everything about a company. So use this guideline: no more than 3% of your portfolio in any one stock. no more than 30% of your portfolio in stocks  M) WHAT ARE SOME GOOD DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS? The internet. Yes, it’s still growing.   Baby boomers retiring. They need special facilities to live in. They need better cancer diagnostics and treatments. Energy. The more people we have, the more energy we will consume. Go for energy sources that are profitable and don’t need government subsidies. Whenever you depend on the government, you could get in trouble. Temp staffing. Every company is firing people and replacing them with temp staffers. Batteries. If you can figure out how to invest in Lithium, then go for it. G, PART 2) WHAT IF WE ARE IN A BUBBLE? Some hedge fund manager (David Einhorn) just said we might be in a tech bubble. Back to rule #1: He doesn’t know. It’s just a headline. Bubbles don’t mean anything. We had an internet bubble in the 90s. Then a housing bubble. And if you just held through all of that, your stock portfolio right now would be about a percent from all-time highs. So ignore cycles and bubbles and ups and downs. H) MY FRIEND HAS A BUSINESS IDEA. SHOULD I INVEST IN IT? Probably not. But if you want a checklist, make sure these four boxes can be checked: The CEO has started and sold a business before.   • The company has revenues and/or profits. You are getting a really good deal.  I can say this: every time I have invested with this approach it’s worked miracles. And every time I have not invested in this approach it’s been a DISASTER.  J) WHAT ABOUT METALS AS A HEDGE AGAINST INFLATION? No, they have zero correlation with inflation. The best hedge against inflation is the US stock market since about 60% of revenues of the S&P 500 comes from foreign countries. K) WHAT ABOUT METALS LIKE GOLD? DON’T THEY HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE? No. But if you’re going to pick a metal, wait until the gold/silver ratio gets higher than it’s historical average and buy silver. L) WHAT ABOUT MUTUAL FUNDS? No. Use the criteria I describe above, pick 20 companies and invest. O) IF NO HOUSING AND ONLY 30% OF MY PORTFOLIO IN STOCKS, THEN WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH THE REST OF MY MONEY? Why are you in such a rush to put all of your money to work? Relax!  Cash is a beautiful thing. You can pay for all your basic needs with it. You can sleep at night knowing there is cash in the bank. I love a stress-free life. When I look back, the times when I’ve been most stressed is when I’ve been heavily invested and the times when I’ve been least stressed is when I had cash in the bank. Forget about it. And finally, write down 10-20 bad ideas a day. Every day give the world at least one more reason to whisper “thank you” to you. Say you own a painting you bought for $20K, and due to rosy conditions in the art market, it is now worth $40K. If you owned no painting, would you still acquire it at the current price?

From Becoming brilliant

How to level four, communication through writing decreases the readers need to guess the message.

People who are good communicators take the perspective of the listener.

 Sara sees a box of M&M's on the kitchen. Excited, she opens the box only to discover that the box has just paper clips. Her mom Chuckles and ask Sarah what her brother will think when he sees the Box. Sarah says paper clips. She's having a hard time reconciling that she can think one thing but Larry can think something else. When kids no longer say paper clips but say m&ms we have a theory of mind. - just what they need to take the bus spective of the listener

Level 3 requires that we take the mindset of a listener into account.

On YouTube we found a wonderful level three conversation. The topic under discussion is a rendezvous at the park. The two children were on an independent phone call. Please stay on topic they also discuss whether they should walk or take the car. They slip out of level 3 when they point for each other to park out of the window. Because they are in different places pointing out the window won't work. Where they feel, pointing out the window offers us a chance to look at how good Converse work

Ever hear of the flipped classroom? It is based on the discovery that Active Learning is much more effective in high school and college than sitting in class and listening to lectures. Flipped classroom, students listen to lectures at home and do homework problems together in class. Everyone gets to talk in class and operate on the material. Student participation is the norm and not the exception. She asked parents to watch a video at home kidz about maps that introduce the vocabulary they needed words like north-south and map key. The next day they made a map of the neighborhood right around their school. The class had a blast using all of the new vocabulary words.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/


For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

From https://hbr.org/2015/11/3-timeless-rules-for-making-tough-decisions

I perused the restaurant menu for several minutes, struggling with indecision, each item tempting me in a different way.

We spend an inordinate amount of time, and a tremendous amount of energy, making choices between equally attractive options in everyday situations. The problem is, that while they may be equally attractive, they are also differently attractive, with tradeoffs that require compromise. Even when deciding between kale salad (healthy and light), salmon (a heavier protein), and ravioli (tasty, but high carbs).

The first method is to use habits as a way to reduce routine decision fatigue. The idea is that if you build a habit —for example: always eat salad for lunch — then you avoid the decision entirely and you can save your decision-making energy for other things.

That works for predictable and routine decisions. But what about unpredictable ones?

The second method is to use if/then thinking to routinize unpredictable choices. For example, let’s say someone constantly interrupts me and I’m not sure how to respond. My if/then rule might be: if the person interrupts me two times in a conversation, then I will say something.

These two techniques — habits and if/then — can help streamline many typical, routine choices we face in our lives.

What we haven’t solved for are the larger more strategic decisions that aren’t habitual and can’t be predicted.

Most importantly, they are decisions for which there is no clear, right answer.

Leadership teams tend to perseverate over this sort of decision for a long time, collecting more data, excessively weighing pros and cons, soliciting additional opinions, delaying while they wait — hope — for a clear answer to emerge.

But what if we could use the fact that there is no clear answer to make a faster decision?

“It’s 3:15pm,” He said. “We need to make a decision in the next 15 minutes.”

“Hold on,” the CFO responded, “this is a complex decision. Maybe we should continue the conversation at dinner, or at the next offsite.”

“No,” The CEO was resolute, “We will make a decision within the next 15 minutes.”

And you know what? We did.

Which is how I came to my third decision-making method: use a timer.

If the issues on the table have been reasonably vetted, the choices are equally attractive, and there is still no clear answer, then admit that there is no clearly identifiable right way to go and just decide.

It helps if you can make the decision smaller, with minimal investment, to test it. But if you can’t, then just make the decision. The time you save by not deliberating pointlessly will pay massive dividends in productivity.


Hold on, you may protest. If I do spend more time on it, an answer will emerge. Sure, maybe. But, 1) you’ve wasted precious time waiting for that clarity and, 2) the clarity of that one decision seduces you to linger, counter-productively and in fruitless hope for clarity, on too many other decisions.

Just make a decision and move forward.
If you are overwhelmed with too many decisions, take a piece of paper and write a list of the decisions. Give yourself a set amount of time and then, one by one, make the best decision you can make in the moment. Making the decision — any decision — will reduce your anxiety and let you move forward. The best antidote to feeling overwhelmed is forward momentum.

As for my lunch, I ordered the kale salad. Was it the best choice? I don’t know. But at least I’m not still sitting around trying to order.

My favorite bits from : "You, Your child and school" by Ken Robinson

"Will my children discover their true potential and be guided to a career that they love and are passionate about?"

Children are beautifully designed by nature to direct their own education. Children love questioning, and participating. These educative instincts still work beautifully for children who are provided with conditions that allow them to flourish.

Children are very curious. The first priority in education is to keep their Curiosity alive. When children want to learn, they enjoy education. The more Curious children are as they grow, the more they will learn and the more subtle their abilities and sensibilities will become.  How do parents and teachers keep children curious? By intriguing them questions that interest them and by engaging them in projects that inspire them. Kindling your children's curiosity in the most formative years is a gift that will sustain them in a lifetime of learning.

Communication
Fluency in Reading and Writing are accepted imperatives in education, it's just as important to cultivate clear and confident speech. Communication is not only about words and numbers. The ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in all these ways is fundamental to personal well-being and to social confidence and connection.

 Martin Seligman is one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement. Happiness can be analyzed into three different elements: Positive emotions, engagement and meaning. Engagement is about flow - the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Meaning is belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self.  If you feel what you're doing matters to you or to people around you, you're more likely to enjoy doing it.
Career well-being, social well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being, community well being - your sense of Engagement with the area where you live.

If your career deteriorates, it's easy to see how it can cause deterioration in other areas over time

Well-being is more than a fleeting sense of pleasure. It comes from helping people find their talents, interest and purpose: their Element.
Well-being comes from helping children look outward as well as inward: Mindfulness and service to others more than self-absorption.

Well being is as much about effort as circumstances.

Language arts
Language education should include developing a love of literature in all its forms. It should involve developing the skills of what is sometimes called Oracy - being able to speak clearly and confidently and to listen with patience and attention to others.

Math is the ability to understand and work with numbers. Its foundations in education are  in arithmetic- addition subtraction multiplication and division.

In his book : High performers: The secrets of successful schools, he says" students with the best teachers in the best schools learn at at least three times more each year than students with the worst teachers in the worst schools"

The role of teachers is to create the best conditions for learning to happen.
Great teachers keep the students involved, curious, and excited about learning. They Inspire the students to achieve at the highest levels. They instill a Joy for learning, for seeing class time work that comes with it as something to be anticipated rather than endured. They set off Sparks of curiosity in the classroom , and you never know what these sparks will ignite.  Key to deep engagement in High School classrooms is intellectual playfulness. Teachers who offer assignments that are open-ended and projects with intellectual risk are more likely to have students who were consistently engaged.

Exuberant discovery.

Great teachers cultivate task confidence by  developing students abilities in their own areas of expertise. Acquire Knowledge and Skills they need to become independent learners : To experiment, ask questions, and develop the skills in creative and critical thinking.

Great teachers have high expectations for their students.

Great teachers are constantly Reinventing their classrooms and evaluating their own progress with the students. They are relentless

Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, can usually involve parents and when possible, use out of school activities that kids enjoy.

Page 184  read in grade 6 and 7

No homework policy in some schools.
Students daily home assignment

1. Read just-right books every night. And have your parents read to you too.

2. Get outside and play- this does not mean more screen time.

3. Get a good night sleep.


One year on, students have not fallen behind and now have time to be creative thinkers at home and follow their passions. No homework for Kinder through 5th grade doesn't erase learning, but help students tolerate an often long day better and encourages them to pursue their unique interests after school.

Tie homework to real life activities. Get creative particularly with young children.

The first priority in education is to keep children's curiosity alive. The more Curious children are as they grow the more they will learn. how do parents and teachers keep children Curious? by intriguing them with questions. By giving them tasks that challenge them. By engaging them and projects that Inspire them. Kindling your children's curiousity in their most formative years is a gift that will sustain them in a lifetime of learning.

Learning to communicate ideas clearly and coherently is essential to our relationships. It's important to cultivate clear and confident speech.

Martin Seligman is one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement. Happiness can be analyzed into three different women's: Emotions, engagement, meaning.
Positive emotions are what we feel.
Engagement is about flow: " being one with the music, time stopping, loss of self-conscious during an absorbing activity".
Meaning:" belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self"

we Spend most of our waking hours during the week doing something that we consider a career, occupation, vocation or job. If your career well-being is low, easy to see how it can cause deterioration over other areas over time. If you have a career that is. Meaningful, you are likely thriving in career well-being.

Expose your children to measured risk. Let them fail.

From https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2016/10/how-to-deal-with-psychopaths/

Here’s how to deal with a psychopath:

• Don’t. 1) Run. 2) Are you sure you can’t run?
• Accept that some people are just bad news: A tiger is not a good house pet. And you will not change that fact.
• Pay attention to actions, not words: No excuses. No BS. Use the “Rule of Threes.”
• Build your reputation and relationships: You need a good defense and good advice.
• Win-win agreements: Make it easier to go through you than to destroy you.

When in the middle of a deathmatch with a ruthless monster of a human being, being cynical is like having ESP. A jaded perspective can keep you one step ahead of them. But in the long term it can be toxic.

Don’t give up on all people just because you dealt with a really bad one.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/psychologist-says-parents-should-18-things-raise-more-confident-child-a7453631.html

3. Let them figure out problems by themselves"Parental help can prevent confidence derived from self-help and figuring out on the child's own," Pickhardt explains.
In other words, better that your child gets a few B's and C's rather than straight A's, so long as they are actually learning how to solve the problems and do the work.

4. Let them act their ageDon't expect your child to act like an adult. "When a child feels that only performing as well as parents is good enough, that unrealistic standard may discourage effort," he says. "Striving to meet advanced age expectations can reduce confidence."

5. Encourage curiositySometimes a child's endless stream of questions can be tiresome, but it should be encouraged.
Asking questions is a helpful exercise for a child's development because it means they realize that "there are things they don't know ... that there are invisible worlds of knowledge they have never visited."

When children start school, those from households that encouraged curious questions have an edge over the rest of their classmates because they've had practice taking in information from their parents, The Guardian reported, and that translates to taking in information from their teacher. In other words, they know how to learn better and faster.

8. Never criticize their performanceNothing will discourage your child more than criticizing his or her efforts. Giving useful feedback and making suggestions is fine — but never tell them they're doing a bad job.

If your kid is scared to fail because they worry you'll be angry or disappointed, they'll never try new things.

"More often than not, parental criticism reduces the child's self-valuing and motivation," says Pickhardt.

9. Treat mistakes as building blocks for learning"Learning from mistakes builds confidence," he says. But this only happens when you, as a parent, treat mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Don't be over-protective of your child. Allow them to mess up every now and then, and help them understand how they can better approach the task next time.

Pickhardt says parents should see "uh-oh" moments as an opportunity to teach their kids not to fear failure.

10. Open the door to new experiencesPickhardt says you, as a parent, have a responsibility to "increase life exposures and experiences so the child can develop confidence in coping with a larger world."
Exposing children to new things teaches them that no matter how scary and different something seems, they can conquer it.

11. Teach them what you know how to do
You are your child's hero — at least until they're a teenager.
Use that power to teach them what you know about how to think, act, and speak. Set a good example, and be a role model.
Pickhardt says watching you succeed will help your child be more confident that they can do the same.

12. Don't tell them when you're worried about themParental worry can often be interpreted by the child as a vote of no confidence, he says. "Expressing parental confidence engenders the child's confidence."

13. Praise them when they deal with adversity
Life is not fair. It's hard, and every child will have to learn that at some point.
When they do encounter hardships, Pickhardt says parents should point out how enduring these challenges will increase their resilience.
It's important to remind your child that every road to success is filled with setbacks, he adds.

14. Offer your help and support, but not too much of itGiving too much assistance too soon can reduce the child's ability for self-help, says Pickhardt.
"Making parental help contingent on the child's self-help first can build confidence."

15. Applaud their courage to try something newWhether it's trying out for the travel basketball team or going on their first roller coaster, Pickhardt says parents should praise their kids for trying new things. He suggests saying something as simple as, "You are brave to try this!"

"Comfort comes from sticking to the familiar; courage is required to dare the new and different," he says.

16. Celebrate the excitement of learningWhen you're growing up, the journey is more important than the destination.
So whether your child makes the winning goal for his team or accidentally kicks it out of bounds, applaud their effort, Pickhardt says. They should never feel embarrassed for trying.
"Over the long haul, consistently trying hard builds more confidence than intermittently doing well," he explains.

17. Don't allow them to escape reality by spending all their time on the internetDon't allow your kid to hide behind a computer screen. Instead, encourage them to engage with real people in the real world.


18. Be authoritative, but not too forceful or strictWhen parents are too strict or demanding, the child's confidence to self-direct can be reduced.
"Dependence on being told can keep the child from acting bold," he says.

From Raising Happiness:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_get_kids_to_do_boring_but_necessary_tasks

I've never found insulting my children to be particularly effective.
Instead to begin mindfully I could first notice my feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Notice that no matter how speedy we had been, I still would not have been able to get to work on time. Accepting the situation non-judgmentally, rather than futilely trying to force it to be something other than what it was would have left me open to more productive positive alternatives.

The keys to mindful parenting are as follows:
First, notice what is happening and what you're feeling and thinking and
Second accept what is going on without judgement


Bring your attention to your breath, focusing completely on the physical sensation of breathing. If your mind wanders or you noticed that you aren't paying attention to your breath anymore, simply return your attention to your breath. No need to worry about your wandering mind.; simply note what you were thinking about and move your attention back to your breath.
Use this focus on breathing in your daily life and encourage your children to do the same.
Whenever I'm feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or angry I take 5 deep breaths, paying as much attention to them as possible.

Motivating kids:
ERN : Empathy, rationale or Reason, and noncontrolling language. 
E : I know you don't really want to but you need to go brush your teeth right now. Why don't you want to go brush your teeth?
R :  Why you asking your kids to do that seemingly unimportant tasks? Please go brush your teeth so they feel clean and healthy today.
N : imply that they have a choice rather than using controlling language. " what I Propose is.." or " if you choose to...." or " it would be extremely helpful if you..". They were already rejecting the tasks repeatedly. Most kids know they will end up doing list of what we asked them to, but when we avoid controlling language they have a lot less to resist and this offer a lot less resistance.

Empathize, label and validate 
You're acting very angry and frustrated are you feeling small right now?
Is there anything else that you are feeling?
I'm so so so mad at you.
You're mad at me, tell me about that. are you disappointed because I won't let you have a playdate right now?
Yes I want to have that play date right now.
You seem sad.
Interestingly now she is calm, clearly needing a snack and a cuddle.

Kids frequently displace negative emotions on to their loving siblings, parents or caregivers, meaning that while Molly might be mad at herself, a classmate, or her teacher it would be normal for her to displace that emotion on to me when she gets home.

Conflict Resolution and Steps to peace:
1. Breathe.
2. Point out that there is a problem to be solved, and engage them in the problem-solving.
3. Help them calm down.
4. Have everyone State what they want.  uncoached kids fail to State what they want. Rule number one in getting what you want? Ask for it!
5 have everyone Express their feelings. I statement. I feel X when you do y. I feel so Furious when you mess up my fort.
6 it is now a problem they will solve together. Win win.


Start meditating. Have quiet time for reflection or meditation. Talking about things you feel grateful for is a simple way to bring more joy into your life. Regular exercise will make y who was there okay if you want to go back later you promise to do it I guess what I'm saying is out of this she not all thisou smarter as well as happier. Spend time in nature.

When in hot/aroused state, just defer important decisions. I will get back to you later.

Ego depletion: When we are continually exerting self-control, our ability to resist temptation weakens . This suggests, that when one has tasks requiring self-control, better to do them in the morning rather than late in the day

Intra-empathy Mismatch

Empathy between cognitive and emotional states in the same person is missing. We don't understand in our cold state how we will behave in an aroused state.

When in hot/aroused state, just defer important decisions. I will get back to you later.

Week 5 : Self-control

Main theme is : Now vs Later

Present focus bias: The tendency to give more weight to our current environment or state.

Current focus is very strong

What's good now versus what's good in the future

Eating healthy, exercising sounds great in the future but problem is we never get to that future

Reward substitution: using an alternate reward that is immediate, and therefore more motivating.

Why climate change maximizes human apathy:
far in the future, affects others first, we do not see its progression, we don't see a particular person suffering, individual efforts to mitigate are a drop in the bucket

Reward substitution to solve the problem ?   cool factor, rewards point, convenience, tax/punish
Prius: external signal to show how wonderful we are, social rewards like an ego boost.

Reward substitution can get us to act like we care about the world when we really care about our image.

Emotions can overtake cognition.

Hungry, afraid, tired, aroused : effect of arousal : change in sexual preferences, willingness to take risks, willingness to act immorally

Predictions about behavior in "hot" states are largely off mark. changes human beings.

we look differently at risk, immorality,

Make better decisions when in cold states. to prevent screw ups in hot states.