Pooper Scooper

Yea so this week we got to hear from a guest speaker. And though I love to hear the voice of Dr. Feinberg, it was refreshing to hear someone else's point of view on leadership. Upon further review though, I found that Kirk and Doc have the same point of view on leadership, and I found that five hours is a looooong time.

I'm not gonna lie I learned a lot in my five hours. And Kirk did a great job of keeping us interested for the entire time, however looking back I think that it could of been just as efficient in less time. Students seem to have short attention spans, and I feel that most of us probably started drifting off during his presentation.

I'm gonna stop looking at the negatives though and start looking at the good parts of the presentation, after the positives definitely outweighed the negatives. First of all, Kirks book was pretty awesome. Yes it was a children's book, but I think that this portion of his presentation will stick with me the longest.

I think that everyone can relate to times like this, whether in a work environment, or just any group environment. No matter what the situation, there always is something that holds back organizations. The funny thing is that most of the time, people know what's holding them back, they just are too afraid to bring it up and change it.

Thats what made his book so beneficial. It proved a key point in an elementary way. By reducing the story to such an extreme measure, it proved the point that every organization needs a pooper scooper, and that that pooper scooper, may aswell be you.

KIPP

Class this week was pretty awesome as usual. This week we learned about K.I.P.P, a public school that is starting to gain steam across the country. KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program. Essentially this is a more strenuous school, however with this extra work comes more successful students.

Hailing from a small, conservative community I had always just assumed that you either went to the local elementary school, or your parents were rich and sent you to a private school. I was pretty sheltered from any program like KIPP. However, upon learning about the program, I am excited about the possibility of what an organization like this could do for our Education System.

I have always thought that competition is a good thing. The fact is, public schools don't have sufficient competition. Sure students could go to private school, but only if their parents have enough funds to put them there. The bottom line is that public schools can continue to be mediocre because there isn't really an alternative, well until Now.

So that is what excites me the most about KIPP. Not necessarily that it will grow and take over the current education system, but more that it will cause the current education system to step up to the plate.

So we got called out

Monday of this week, Dr. Feinberg called all of us leaders to the front of the class to try and make us feel bad about the way we have been leading so far. The main point he was trying to relay was that we did a poor job of selecting our groups. He said that to have the best group we needed to get the 4.0 students and the students that could meet at a specific time. I'll have to say that we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

To an extent I understand where he was coming from. I mean it is our group and theres no reason to not have the best kids. But the real question here, is are the 4.0 students really the best students? I mean congrats on working hard in school and being book smart, but does this mean that you have the social skills to be effective in a group setting? Again I'm not trying to rag on 4.0 students. Infact, I strive to get all A's each semester. Of course I've fallen short, but does this really mean that I'm not one of the best students in the class?

The fact is, that I wanted my group to be full of students that I enjoy being around. I didn't necessarily want the 4.0 kids because they may be wired different than the students that aren't as successful. I feel that to be a good organization you need to have a collection of people with different skills, of which when combined, eliminate all weaknesses.

Does my group have this? I'm not sure yet. However, so far I'm happy with our selection process and feel that I can be successful with the group I was assigned.

Tower Champions

Yea we won the tower building contest. Was a I surprised we won? No. Was I surprised that my group gelled as well as they did? Yes. My group really did an amazing job today. I cant even take credit for how well they worked together.

I can take credit for the tower idea though. Late last night I came up with the idea of making a water tower. I decided that everyone else would probably make a useless tower, so I would one up them and make a water tower. My inspiration for this was my hometown water tower.

This morning in class, I asked a former student of this class what the towers were judged on, and he said that height was one of the requirements. Knowing that our tower wouldn't be that tall, I went to work trying to think of a way to make it taller. To be honest I didn't come up with anything, and instead sent out an email to my group telling them to bring extra supplies to help in this regard. Man did they come through.

I'm not entirely sure who brought the duct tape and cups, but they no doubt won us the contest. In the end, we didn't have the prettiest tower, but it was the tallest and the most unique. Our group really did a great job coming through in the clutch.

The best thing that our group did, was divide into three groups. One was a creative group, one was the water tower group, and the other was the height group. Each group did a great job. I kind of assigned a leader to each group, and then just overlooked the height and tower groups. In the end we won, so obviously what we did worked.

Again I cannot stress how awesome our group did today. They really came through.

My Group

So this weekend us group leaders divided everyone up into groups. I didn't completely agree with the way we went about doing this, but its whatever. The route we ended up going was for everyone to meet at the doors and find where their assigned seat was. This didn't work out quite as planned.

The problem with all of this was that we simply didn't have enough time to get everyone in their seats. This left a few students in the dark as far as their group goes for the first few days. But none the less, as far as I know, everyone is in a group, so I'd say the group allocation was a success.

Also this week, I started reading Tony Dungy's book, Quiet Strength. I know this doesn't have anything to do with the class, but I found a lot of good leadership traits in this book. Tony Dungy is a great leader and a great man. Reading about him has not only given me new leadership ideas, but has also made me a better person. The main thing that I learned so far from the book is that there is no place in this world for excuses.

I really like Dungy's thoughts on this. A lot of times when we fair we jump to try and find an excuse, but why? I mean an excuse doesn't justify losing. And is sure as heck doesn't change the fact that you lost. So why even make an excuse. This is something that I took to heart and will try and use as I continue to grow as a leader.

Sooo I guess I'm a Group Leader?

So I got word that I was voted in as a group leader today. I'm not really sure what I got myself into, but it should be interesting, none the less. Why did I decide to become a group leader? Well it actually was pretty easy decision.

After the first day of class, I realized that I was different than most of the kids that went to the front. I also realized that most of the class was different from the people that went to the front. Now I'm not picking on the kids that went to the front on the first couple of days, but it just seemed to me that they were taking this class waaaaay to seriously.

Again, don't get me wrong, I take my school work seriously, I get solid grades and do what it takes to get things done. But for some reason I just don't take things very seriously. I'm not sure exactly when this happened, but one day I just realized that I enjoy life a lot more if I have fun in everything I do.

In general I live a pretty stress free life. I'm not quite a hippy, but I try to not let things bother me. The only thing that ever really gets me worked up is bad drivers and competitive sports. But other than that I try to enjoy life and not let things get to me. I assume that there are quite a few kids that feel the same way I do. Because of this I decided to be a group leader.

No class this week?

Yea so we don't even have class this week... So I don't really even know what to talk about...

He canceled class Wednesday and told us to watch Ratatouille in its place. I've already seen this movie, but I decided to watch it again to try and pick up on some of the leadership qualities in the movie. I found that the movie was completely different watching it from a different perspective. Remy really was a pretty good leader. I mean he single handedly changed Linguini's life by simply pulling on his hair.

The thing that kinda bothered me though, was that Remy always stood in the background. Why didn't he parlay the message to Linguine that he needs to be recognized. I applaud his humbleness, but if your a great chef, or great at anything, you need to get recognized. So the main thing I learned watching the movie a second time was that Remy needed to man up and come out from under the hat sooner rather than later... Yes the inspection people wouldn't like a rat serving them, but if the rat is a great chef, I'm sure the inspectors, and the customers, would let it slide...

Another week down...

Yea I'm still trying to figure out this class.

Luckily this week, the teacher actually started to come. He seems like a pretty interesting guy. His teaching is really abstract, and sometimes he gets off topic, but for the most part he seems like a pretty awesome teacher. The one thing we did this week that really bothered me, was that we spent an entire class walking up front to shake his hand.

Now I understand the power of a good handshake, but I found this whole experience to be a waste of time. I mean most of us have already taken AgEcon 331, so we all know how to shake hands... After class though, I wondered if maybe we failed to catch the point of this entire exercise.

Dr. Feinberg has long said that he was going to be a bad leader at the start of the semester. He says that it is our job to make him a good leader. I have yet to come up with a way to do this, however I think that this weeks class though would of been a good start. Why didn't I say something to him? Was he expecting someone to call him out on such a pointless exercise. After class I started to think that this was his whole point, and that simply the whole class missed out.

Maybe next time I'll catch on a little earlier and be man enough to say something.

Whata class...

I'm not gonna lie, yesterday's class was one of the oddest experiences of my life. I live a rather odd life as it is, so for this to trump all of my other classes is quite the accomplishment. Why was this class so odd? Well its actually pretty simple. The teacher didn't show up.

When we came into class we found papers on the desks explaining what we were supposed to accomplish during the class. For the first half hour or so everyone expected a teacher to come and save the day. When people started realizing that the teacher wasn't coming, they started to panic. Why kids act the way they do, is something I'll never figure out.

For some reason the fact that the teacher didn't show up reallllly bothered some kids. A couple of the people up front were seriously freaking out. Now I realize that I don't care about school as much as some students, but I found this whole day rather interesting.

I found it interesting that some of the kids felt so compelled to go to the front and try and lead our class. I appreciate their efforts, and applaud their leadership, however I cant figure out what they were expecting to accomplish without any guidance. Leadership is impossible if you have no where to lead, and yet these kids were trying to lead...

The whole day was just interesting. Some kids found it pointless, and some kids allowed the class to annoy them, however I found it interesting to see all of these kids go up and try to lead us, especially since we had no where to go...