The Creative Classroom by Mitchell Lopate, M.A.T. = Academic humanities advising-mentoring, tutoring, writing support: Two decades of college & university and middle-elementary education in-class/online with a B.A. in psychology and a masters in education. Cross-curriculum humanities concepts, career counseling, MBA instruction, composition and research methods, and values, ethics, and writing. “Learn by example, succeed by effort." mitchLOP8@yahoo.com / 840-216*1014
Sunday, February 25, 2024
ADHD Learning Styles for children
Friday, February 23, 2024
Sunday, February 18, 2024
My MBA introduction video
Just a link to a video that I share with my MBA students before class begins; I send this out at least three weeks ahead because it encourages their effort.
To my students: apologies for length--this is 25 minutes. That's because there's a lot to cover for a 6-week class--and I do not micro-manage. I let you go at your own pace, including deadlines that work for you. My suggestions for the video: take notes. Do @12 minutes, then STOP. Take a break. THEN go back and finish the 2nd portion. I know mentally that an audience shuts off after 15 minutes. And it takes time to process information this intense--including my personality.
I also have that New York style of speaking a bit faster at times. Sorry--I have been working on it for years. That's one way I overcame stage fright and learned to do public speaking--and stand-up comedy. Oh yeah--I do it on education: both yours and mine. LOL
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Indigo (and Crystal) Children are Different Learners for the 21st Century
(Dedicated to Morgan and Angela, in Boaz, AL, and to Ayla from Boston.)
This is more of a social commentary, but it is deeply relevant to issues in education and teaching.
It is time to talk more about Indigo Children...and perhaps later, Indigo Adults. Yes, we are real, we are here, and we (as adults) have been walking on this world for many years. As Time itself becomes more and more significant regarding socio-economic, political, and geo-physical changes on Earth, it is more important than ever that we are recognized as being DIFFERENT in our values, our sensitivities, and our purpose for knowing what and why we are here to teach and share information.
From http://www.halexandria.org/dward035.htm
Variously called the Indigo and Violet children, the Children of Oz, or the Sun Eyed Children of the Marvelous Dawn, this generation of young people seems to be a new species of humanity arising on Earth today. They think differently, their emotional bodies process feelings differently, their energy bodies are capable of holding stronger soul vibrations, and they have a new vision to share. They do not fit into mainstream society. Many of them appear to have special psychic and healing abilities, and [they] need special support to control and develop these gifts.
The Indigo children generally seem to range in age from the teens into the thirties, while the Violet children are younger, and carry a different mandate. Some of you reading this comprise the Indigo generation, and you are birthing a new species of kids. The Violet kids do not need to read any of this to know what’s real. They are linked mind to mind in a global psychic link-up that reflects a new fifth-dimensional morphogenetic grid on Earth. As with the hundredth monkey phenomenon [1] they are the first to step into what Sri Aurobindo envisioned as “supramental consciousness”, which will eventually become available to the rest of us also, if we choose it.
There is a new “root race” forming on Earth! Perhaps some of you reading this are being called to provide emotional support, or to provide guidance in “training” them, or to provide safe havens for them to come together, or to support their mission by attuning with them through their global mind-link.
Richard Giles, using the perspective of Astrology has his own take on the Indigo Children.
“Among other attributes, the children relate easily to the rush of images of modern movies and communications and have no trouble understanding everything -- their information processing abilities sometimes breathtaking. They are very sensitive children in tune with the pace of technological and future change, have few self-worth issues, absolutely no fear of authority, frustrated by systems that are non-creative and ritual oriented, and they want to do things in new and better ways. They sometimes seem antisocial, and do not respond to guilt-inducing discipline techniques in school or at home. [emphasis added]
“Many of these children are gifted souls. They combine the weird, inventive and futuristic energies of Uranus with the inspirational energies of Neptune. They have all sorts of patterns by which their behaviors are indicated - probably the most obvious is what we call ADHD or ADD. However, they ought not be diagnosed as hyperactive, dyslexic and suffering from neurological disorders. The astrologer Donna Cunningham in her excellent article entitled The Ritalin Generation, describes them as children who may be ‘wired’ differently from the rest of us. She suggests that rather than having ADD and being described as hyperactive, it is more likely the previous generations (the rest of us) are to be considered hypoactive by comparison (Mountain Astrologer, April/May 2001).
“The children elected as ‘Indigo’ by authors Carroll and Tober, in their book, The Indigo Children [Hay House, 1999] may be the ones who can best adjust to the future as it’s forming now with its vast high tech and mind-expanding possibilities. Only they have a nervous system wired for the immense unfolding of the next few decades, processing and acting upon astoundingly large amounts of information in very short spaces of time. This is why the new movie and TV advertisements don’t leave them mind-staggered like they do many of us. The Indigo Children can be described as creative, independent, brilliant and self-governing. Unfortunately, it also means they do not fit in with today’s education systems which to many of these children, seem as unfulfilling as a discarded old piece of rag and as frustratingly slow as can be with non-responsive, entrenched authoritarianism.
“Many then are seen as difficult and overactive and are drugged out with Ritalin, etc., and other pharmaceutical prescriptions to keep them limited to the older standards. Give them enlightened teachers who don’t have issues with authority themselves and they will thrive. Lock their minds up and they will rebel or refuse to cooperate and drop out.
“Identifying this combination child is the first step (not all born from 1988 have every characteristic). Cooperating with them is next. They will inherit the environmental predicament made by today’s leaders as their big issue being called upon to resolve it. They need support, understanding, creativeness and patience.”
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Friday, February 2, 2024
Monday, January 29, 2024
Geometry in 4th grade: SING it. DANCE it!!
Monday, January 15, 2024
Famous Faces in History: Who ARE they? And why you SHOULD know them.
Calling all history majors, English majors, journalists, advertising majors, and marketing reps--and a few instructors too: let's see you solve the puzzle of 16 Famous Faces.
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Here are 16 faces: who's who? (Hint: one just became a royal grandfather again.)
In 1995, I was substitute-teaching and saw a Wall Street Journal. (It's not my normal reading, but it was there.) In it, I saw an advertisement for Dewar's Scotch: these were the images used, and the selling point was something about so few leaders available for such good Scotch. My response: I showed initiative and pro-active thinking BY CALLING THE DEWAR'S ADVERTISING OFFICE AND ASKING TO SPEAK TO WHOMEVER DESIGNED THE AD. I WANTED TO KNOW WHO THREE (3) FACES WERE: I thought I knew 13, and I did. But the last three stumped me--and I wasn't giving up. Not me with my encylopedic-photographic memory. And they obliged me--and I was right about at least one. The other two...now I recognize them.
And there was more. Dewar's sent me a color image of the ad, and I had it framed and hung on the wall for years. I've let it since go, but the significance is in their eyes: who ARE these people, what did they do with their lives to be this important, and why were they selected?
(Another hint: at least 2 had the same position in life and circumstances as the background; two held the same position of service to their country, and two are notorious strategists. Fascinating, isn't it, what you can do when your curiosity does more than just push buttons on a phone?
By the way, this would make an excellent history or education--or marketing! lesson--because of the strategic placement of some of the candidates. It's almost bitter irony in some instances.
Friday, January 5, 2024
Saturday, December 30, 2023
The Value of Literature, Part II
Upton Sinclair’s muckraking masterpiece The Jungle centers on Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Chicago’s infamous Packingtown. Instead of finding the American Dream, Rudkus and his family inhabit a brutal, soul-crushing urban jungle dominated by greedy bosses, pitiless con-men, and corrupt politicians.
While Sinclair’s main target was the industry’s appalling labor conditions, the reading public was most outraged by the disgusting filth and contamination in American food that his novel exposed. As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt demanded an official investigation, which quickly led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws. For a work of fiction to have such an impact outside its literary context is extremely rare. (At the time of The Jungle’s publication in 1906, the only novel to have led to social change on a similar scale in America was Uncle Tom’s Cabin.)
Today, The Jungle remains a relevant portrait of capitalism at its worst and an impassioned account of the human spirit facing nearly insurmountable challenges.
2. Psychology: heights and depths of human psyche
3. Zoology: study of animals (and relationships to humans)
4. Sociology: social problems and other cultures
5. Geography: other places and habitats; environmental issues
6. Math: reason and deduction
7. Speech: communication
8. Art/music: balance of form, rhythm, and structure
9. Science: laws of nature and cause-and-effect
9. Marketing/Business: Business/economic strategies
Analyzing and interpreting literature helps develop critical thinking skills. The power to analyze problems and make convincing written and oral presentations is a major quality of leadership and general excellence.
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
The Value of Literature: Life Lessons that teach values & cause/effect
* Enables us to recognize achievement of human dreams and struggles from places and times apart from our own.
* Offers valuable testimonies about life experiences that broaden our knowledge.
* Links us with varied base of culture, philosophy, and religious values that comprise our beliefs and ideals.
* Provide resource tools of perspective by using our imagination in ways that a computer or television set can NOT do but our brain is capable: literature sensitizes us with interest, concern, tension, excitement, hope, fear, regret, humor, and sympathy.
* Literature helps shape our judgments through comparison and perception of good and evil (cause-and effect); options, decisions, outcomes.
* Literature teaches us about human nature: Perceptions, feelings, lives, patterns of human existence that are timeless and consistent; motivations that have shaped and altered society for better or worse.
Therefore, literature makes us THINK and stretch our ability to do so!
Monday, December 4, 2023
Things you never knew: the Great Lakes
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Welcome to Holiday (Horror Day) High School! (A funny look at Grades 9-12)
Welcome to a new school year! On Amazon.com Kindle or paperback.
Welcome to “Horror Day” High School.
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Meet the Class of ‘67: it’s a typical teenage crowd—with a European, 7’0”, 110-lb. albino “vampire” who sucks the juice out of oranges through a straw, a hairy wolf-boy who howls over tests, the Hulk-in-football pads, a pink lollipop-Valentine girl, a Brainiac, a Halloween Goth-witch, a Christmas surfer girl, and a guy with green skin—and hair!
👻👻👻
It’s really “Holiday High School” in Las Vegas. These are the memoirs of “the Dirt Devils,” the weird-and-wild-ones who “did it their way” enroute to graduation before the fame, notoriety, and legacies of success in business as adults—but not before they turned the world of education on its head.
The boys love monster movies at the drive-in shows, putting cars on top of the auditorium roof for fun, and scaring the opposing football teams with weird cheers—and their appearances. The girls like to dress according to their favorite holiday colors—and keeping up with the mischief.
Join them as they craft bizarre school songs, smoke cigars in empty classrooms, engage in spitball-straw cannon fights, and overall, leave the administration hanging from the ceiling in dismay.