Untentional Intolerance--Influence of Life Experience on Unintended Behavior

"Several years ago, Steve L. Robbins, PhD, coined the term 'unintentional intolerance' to define biases of which people are unaware," (JAVMA News, October 1, 2008).  Many researchers have documented various components of life experience which serves as the filter by which we find value in our experience--both tacitly (unconsciously) and with conscious awareness.

In my 1992 dissertation, I explored the components of life experience (see slide 3, then slide 2) and showed how these components of life experience are a factor in how we reflect on our experience and add to our integrated life experience.

While research such as that completed for this dissertation show how these often tacitly held beliefs influence our behavior, that does not mean that we remain aware of these influences in the moment of our action.

How often do we allow unintentional intolerance to influence our speech and behavior?  We often act in the same way a personal computer or Macintosh computer allows us to have operations working in the background of our awareness while we focus our attention on something in the foreground.

Becoming a Trusted Advisor--Independent Consulting for Businesses, Not-for-Profit Organizations, and Schools

Syms, in its advertising, says that "an educated consumer is its best customer."  There is a problem about having educated consumers as customers in the consulting services marketplace.  While there are multiple markets, three serve as practical examples--businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and schools.  When leaders in any of these three markets feel a need for consulting services, they go to trusted providers.  Businesses usually go to consulting firms rather than to individuals.  Not-for-profit organizations look for consulting firms specializing in their kind of organization.  Schools frequently look to universities as their source for trusted advisors.

Regardless of how much education and practical experience consulting professionals may have, there is no "instant" way to become a trusted advisor.  Another challenge is that, once someone becomes a trusted advisor the relationship may be considered more personal than professional--making it more difficult to charge and to collect an hourly fee.

LinkedIn.com encourages members to solicit recommendations from others in the member's network.  Recommendations can help begin to build trust between professionals.  Rather than mastering the "Google Ad Words" promotion, it is challenging to create an electronic footprint that allows for people to discover a new "trusted advisor."  Videos on YouTube may be one source for initial connections.

Ninety-first post to this blog

When I began this blog on August 10, 2009, I was committing to a daily post of reflections and ideas.  As I write the post tonight, I notice that this is the ninety-first blog.  One or two days had two posts, especially if I missed the midnight deadline for a post.

I want to write and publish several books.  A few are in various draft forms.  One of the purposes of a daily blog was to have the discipline of writing.  Indeed, another possibility for a book is to combine the daily blogs once I have enough of them written.

Reflection on daily thoughts and activities has been very worthwhile.  I don't know who is reading this blog and I refer to it in various posts and websites.  The process also allows me to make connections between activities and reflection that I might otherwise miss.

Sometimes I wait until almost 11:00PM to make my entries.  It seems that it takes that long sometimes to focus on what I want to post.  The good news is that throughout the day ideas for the blog are percolating in my mind, waiting for me to write them down.

Today has been an unusual day.  Lately I have been involved in contacting business professionals around the world to find people who want to work with me in enrolling language learners in a new, affordable, online language learning program.  I have been asking for people who are interested to contact me and have been responding to their e-mails with information.  There were fewer e-mails today and I find myself challenged to find innovative ways to encourage business professionals to check-out the programs and the business opportunities associated with them.

I need to explore new ways to connect with people who can and who want to benefit from the language learning these programs make available.  Anyone with any ideas, please comment on this post.

True Goals and Distracting Goals--Keeping Focused on True Goals

In her book, Shaman's Crossing, Robin Hobb introduces a task challenge made to several teams.  Each team is provided with building materials and has to choose a leader and to find a way to cross a stream.  The goal is for everyone on the team to be on the far side of the stream.  Team leaders can trade materials with other teams and, once traded, cannot claim it back.

As the teams explore ways to build a bridge across the stream, one team of nine has three people ford the stream so that they can anchor the bridge on the far side.  They explore several types of bridges and create one that almost works.  The next to the last team member crossing the bridge falls into the stream and the leader (the last one to cross over the bridge) realizes that the goal was not to build a bridge.  The true goal was to get every member of his team to the other side of the stream within a certain time.  He and the team help the next to the last man get to the top of the bank and the entire team reaches the far bank before time is called.

This reminds me of the importance of keeping focused on true goals and not on distracting goals.  Many times we choose a vehicle to try to accomplish a goal.  We can get so tied up with working with the technology (vehicle) we can forget the actual goal.

Support for "Flying Outside the Box"--Lifting beyond the limits of gravity

In the 1960 movie, High Time, Bing Crosby (playing Harvey Howard, 51-year-old widower and stakehouse tycoon) goes to college.  The movie tracks his college career from arrival on campus for his freshman year through graduation.  Along the way he falls in love with Nicole Maurey (playing the French lecturer, Madame Gautier).  He affirms that he is locked into his past--family, career, etc. and could no more fall in love again "than he could fly."  (Of course he does fall in love again and she does with him.)  As the commencement speaker at his graduation, Bing demonstrates that he has changed his mind and has gone beyond his  pre-existing limits of thought and behavior--and declares his love. 

As much as I am an advocate for "out-of-the-box" thinking, I believe that there are times when I need to learn to "fly"--in much the way Bing does in this movie.  I was a paratrooper in the Army and loved the feeling of floating to earth under a parachute.  While that's not quite the same as flying, it does compel moving to a new perspective of thought.  "Tree-top level" is the moment when a paratrooper needs to relax and to get ready to land.  (My experiences were all "combat jumps" at about 1,200 feet above the ground rather than long free-fall jumps.)

Finding new ways to do things, using technology to help us to fly, all of these are important habits to cultivate, along with reflection and recognizing when we are "bumping our head against a glass ceiling."  It is important to develop strategies to move beyond these pre-existing limits. 

I enjoy watching High Time in the Fall to be reminded to lift off beyond the limits of gravity as I move into new projects and work.

Making Connections between Schools, Parents, and Students

Teachers are often challenged to make connections between schools, parents, and students.  Many times parents regard their children and school work as unrelated to the "real world" of their day-to-day lives.  The Library of Congress of the United States of America has suggested that students capture oral histories of their families.

Last year I had two projects that I introduced at the middle school (seventh and eighth grade) level that could be adapted up and down and is relevant to adults as well.  These two projects were a Family Migration History project and a Footprints Project.  You can find out more about these projects on my digital portfolio for education on YouTube.  (Follow this link for the same video on Teacher Tube.)  You can find the details for the projects on these websites:  http://drmontgomery.wikispaces.com/ and http://drm-ms-resources.wikispaces.com/.

In the Family Migration Story we used the National Geographic Human Genome Project as our starting place for everyone's stories, then picked up personal family stories as far back as the parents could remember, talking about family members and reasons for moving from one place to another across the globe.  Using a collaborative writing technique guided by the teacher students in each class created a series of questions which they translated from English to their native language.  They asked their parents the questions and recorded the answers.  They also gathered family pictures, souvenirs, and other family treasures to support their stories.  (These are called primary source documents in historical research circles.)  We made digital copies of these treasures and returned them immediately to their parents.  Our goal was to have the students write a script from their answers and to digitally record their Family Migration Stories--accompanied by the digital photographs of their family treasures.  Ideally they would make the recording in both English and in their native language.  Our goal was to record their scripts onto DVDs which the parents could then play at home.  Due to technological difficulties the audio in our recordings didn't work last year, though the rest of the project went well.

The Footprints project takes the end of the Family Migration Story and talks about what someone has done with their lives.  Middle school students can talk about what they want to do with their lives and what kind of footprint they want to leave on the planet.  Parents and teachers can talk about footprint stories from the point of view of what they have done with their lives and of the footprint they are leaving on the planet.

These are very engaging projects and are good for the beginning of a school year, though they could be a focus point for anytime during the year.  Parents could come to the school to view multiple Family Migration Stories as part of a celebration of learning.

The key to integrating parents into the school life and the life of the students is to make the connections with the real world.  Parents and students studying language together can be a help as well as parents becoming involved as subject matter experts about their own families.

Finding Quality Professional Connections around the world--LinkedIn Social Networking

I need to find quality professional connections around the world.  Looking to social networking for a solution, LinkedIn.com seems to be a very good solution.  There are millions of people connected via the site.  Many of the discussion groups put me in touch with professionals in the areas I am looking for.  Alumni networks put me in touch with professionals who share a corporate history with me from the global workplace.

LinkedIn offered me the opportunity to start my own discussion groups.  I created three to gather together people interested in three different projects I am currently working on.  I've just dissolved one of these groups due to apparent lack of interest (at the moment) and have sent an announcment to members of the Audio eBooks for Learning to see if people want that group to continue.  My newest group is DrM-Language-Network so that people who choose to work with me on my latest project, making affordable online language learning programs available to learners throughout the world, can join with me to share ideas and to celebrate sucesses.

I've joined several pre-existing LinkedIn discussion groups so that I can invite people to work with me or to refer me to others who may want to be involved in my current project(s).  Some of these people have also joined my "primary" LinkedIn network.

Many of the people who are already in my primary LinkedIn network are the type of professionals I enjoy working with.  LinkedIn is one place to find quality professional connections.  Presently this seems to be the most direct and effective means, though I am open to learning about more.