Week 4 - Inspiring Peer Environment

Isn't this a creative rendition of "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer"?
You guys had such profound things to say at our discussion on perfectionism. You thought of analogies I hadn't considered and I enjoyed your willingness to help one another by contributing your thoughts and your way of seeing things. I sure love you all!

A talented young lady in our class wrote the following poem last week, I thought it went well with what we talked about: The Dangerous Mirror.

I was going to put pictures of our activity on here, but I haven't transferred them to the computer yet - they are still on my phone, but you can see them on a blog post I wrote about it and read some of my take home-messages from our discussion here.

This week we have an evening activity so we are meeting later (from 6-10 instead of 2:30-4:30). If you are coming here from the ACT class that ends at 5 - you can bring a couple of dollars and we can order some pizza for those who wants to eat before class (maybe let me know ahead of time so I can have enough pizza ready.) We will be having an activity and discussion on Old Fashioned Girl, doing service and playing some fun games.

Also, if you have any sports equipment or like new (gently used) clothes of any size you can donate to an orphanage in Mexico, please bring those with you. I will be taking them to someone who is going to Mexico and can deliver them. We will be working on some fleece blankets for them too while you are here. If you want to donate any of your money to help pay for the fleece, please let me know so I can know how much I can buy.

Our Inspirements for the week are:

Fri. January 29th 6-10:00 pm

1. Read On Writing Well Intro-Chapter 5 (page ix-31)
2. Finish Old Fashioned Girl if you have not yet done so.
3. Watch:Embrace the Shake and  How Messy Problems Inspire Creativity
4. Email me 2 questions: One addressed to the girls in the class and one addressed to the boys. * See instructions below.
5. Read: Guidepost 3 on GOI
6. Work on your own goal from Guidepost 2 on perfectionism. We'll ask you how it went at the beginning of class.
7. Be working on your own creative project - if you are having a hard time thinking of ideas, I would love it if you guys could think of some creative ways to share our poem, scripture, song or theme (perfectionism vs wholeness) at the family presentation in March. Let me know if you have any ideas to throw out to the class so I can be sure to give you time on Friday.

*Question instructions: Old Fashioned Girl highlighted 2 different environments - one that seemed to focus on fashion, gossip, crushes and position. The other on finding mission, blessing others, doing right and reaching potential. Ask questions that can help you understand how you can best establish the latter (or why would want to) in our class or in any other environment (home, church, dances, other classes, etc) If it goes well, maybe we can share our message in some way - like a video - with others who want some principles about why and how to do this in their own sphere.Your questions can be general like, "What can a girl do to bring out the best in the young men around her?" Or more specific to the book like, "Mr. Sidney said ______ - do you agree with him? Why?"  Let me know if you have questions about this.

 So don't forget there are 3 things to email me about asap:
1. Do you want pizza Friday before class? (bring $2)
2. Do you want to donate any money for fleece?
3: 2 or more questions - at least one for the boys and one for the girls (yes you can ask the same question to both if you want) -  they will be anonymous to the class so you can feel free to ask whatever you'd like.

Week 3 - Battleground of Perfectionism

Today and next week:
Thanks for a great discussion in class today. I hope you all went home with some new thoughts about acceptance and diligence.. Thanks Nathan for leading a great discussion! Since the discussion was so good, I didn't want to interrupt with a few things in Old Fashioned Girl I still want to talk about and to relate to our Great Works environment (and other environments) so please finish it this week so we can discuss these things. It is really not a hard book to get through.

As you read, think about what it is that inspires the characters to be better, and what it is that keeps them down. Take notes on what you find. If you already finished it, just go through and skim so you can remember what those things were. If you already wrote a discussion question last week, you don't have to write another one this week unless you come across something else you want to discuss. I will look through both weeks for the discussion questions for this next class.

Creative Projects:
Until we have a blog going to communicate about what we are working on for collaborative projects, please let me know if you have an idea (on paper) that you would like to work on so I can give you time in class to share it. We got a lot of ideas last week and you were able to see what people were excited about, so the next step is to plan something with more details.

You will want to pitch your idea to the class so they will be excited to do it with you - so it should be well thought out - it won't be perfect yet - just a thought-out draft. Others will help you refine it and we will pool our resources together to make it work - but you should have a written draft with as much detail as you know, ready to share with the class. When you think you are to that point, shoot me an email so I can plan time in class for it and I will forward your email to Isaiah so he can start helping you refine it so it will be ready to pitch to the class.

Inspirements:

1. Finish Old Fashioned Girl if you didn't finish it last week...I am going to ask that you finish it instead of just reading certain chapters, but you can skip "Grandma" (this is different than from what I said in class).
2. Read: That’s How the Light Gets In by Jarvis and 
3. Read: The Battleground of Perfectionism (PDF) By Cramer and Change Yourself by Palmer
4. Write: a favorite quote, application, and question from the readings
5. Read: Guidepost 2 on GOI
6. Act: Do what you committed to do in your "reflection" writing in class (see below).

 

Reflection Question to act on this week:

if you forgot what the reflection question at the end of class was or you lost what you wrote down, here it is:

What is my take home message from this discussion and book? What vulnerable thing can I do this week to practice being authentic while I do it? What will I say to myself to remind me to be authentic when I am faced with this uncomfortable situation and others?

Week 2 - Connection, Compassion, Courage and Creative Collaboration

Thank-you all for a great first day of the semester. What an incredible group we have! I just love being around you and hearing your insightful thoughts and connections.

If you did not get to attend class today (Caden) please send me a quick note telling me what you thought about the reading. It doesn't have to be long - even just a paragraph will do. If any of you have to miss class in the future, please do the same (and try to get it to me before class from now on so we can all gain from your thoughts.)

Following are the inspirements for the week. There is quite a lot to do this week if you haven't started the book yet (I hope most of you read most of it over your Christmas break, but I am guessing a lot of you didn't just because it was Christmas break)

Week 2: Discuss and Create

Fri. January 15th 2:30-4:3

1. Act: Guidepost 1 on The Gifts of Imperfection (GOI) (I will send the PDF for those who don't yet have the book) - At the end there is a DIG deep section - pick one of those to practice or make up your own way to practice the concept during the week.
2.  Read or listen to An Old Fashioned Girl by Alcott
3. Write: your thoughts about how this book might relate to your social system and situation and bring them to class. 
4. Write a discussion question and favorite quote on the comments below
5. Work on a creative idea if you have one you are excited about

 Here are the collaborative ceative ideas you came up with so far:

Studio C Type Skits (Dreams Going Wrong, etc)
Spoof Video (Overdramatic verson of a movie)
Full Length movie
Star Wars the Musical
Gracious' screen play
A collaborative painting on a huge canvas
Song where everyone sings something
Tin foil/Play-dough/Multi-medium animation
Music Video
Piano Guys Cello, Piano, Singing
5 Course meal
Quilting Bee
Big Community Service Project
Class Song
You Don't Know You're Beautiful Music Video
Poetry to music
Composing a Song,
Music collaboration

To start a collaboration on any of these (or whatever else you come up with), someone will have to get their idea on paper (write out some ideas about materials, vision, setting, parts, choreography, music, whatever it may need) and pitch it to the class where people will give their ideas for improving it and for how they could help. Once it is ready for "doing", we can start working on it. Feel free to post more thoughts or ideas on the discussion blog to start getting feedback before Friday.

We will probably spend the first hour of class discussing the concepts we are working on (this will help us create authentic, connecting, meaningful works) and then the last hour (or what's left of class if we started late) to collaborate on projects.

By the way, I am fine with people staying later at my house if you ever feel the need when you get really into a project and parents are okay with it (unless we are planning to go somewhere, but that is unusual).