“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.  The fears are paper tigers.  You can do anything you decide to do.  You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

That is a quote by Amelia Earhart.  I found it in my English exam that had the theme ‘Decisions’.  I thought the theme of the exam was quite funny and ironic because decisions are what brought us all here, and each one of us has a story.

Take mine for example.  I made one bad decision that had a chain reaction of bad happenings.  The start of this chain was that I dropped out of high school because having ADHD made it too hard for me.

Being 18 with no high school, I got stuck with a low paying job, and got a credit card to buy the things that I couldn’t afford with my low pay.  Next thing I knew, I was in debt equal to a year’s pay.

With this kind of debt I ended up getting one of those crappy, but good paying, jobs where I ended up hurting my back.  This injury, eventually, caused me to lose the very job that caused it.

With an injured back and no education, it was impossible to get a job.  This caused me to become very depressed, and have some pretty dark thoughts.  Everything in my life was falling apart.

Luckily, I ran into a girl that told me how she recently signed up at an adult high school.  With really nothing else to lose, I looked up some schools and found AEC, and signed up myself.

But that is just my story.  All of you I am speaking for today share similar stories, some not as bad, and some even worse.  These stories could range anywhere from a person just wanting to better understand the English language, being a single mother, or getting into drugs during school.

But the most important part is that we made the right decision of coming back and seeing it through to the end.  This is not a simple task.  This is not like the first time you went to high school where at the end of the day you just simply went home to your parents’ house.

This time it is much different, and much more difficult.  Now we have to go to work after school, pick up and take care of our kids, make sure the bills are paid, face our fears, and much more.

This list alone can make life tough for most people.  Now imagine all that with school and homework thrown into the mix.  This may have been the toughest year or years for some of you, myself included.  There were times when I wanted to give up, but I never did.

I owe this to the students and staff at this school, and my family. Whenever I felt like giving up, someone was always there to keep me on track.  Right from the start I owed Glen a huge thanks.

I worried that I would just fail English like every other time in the past, but Glen was the first teacher, ever, to make me understand grammar and punctuation.  He was even kind enough to correct my grammar and punctuation in Psychology, so, as a gift, I printed out an extra copy of my speech for him to correct.  You can think of it as a parting gift Glen.

Melissa and Sheryl, for making it fun to go to school with both the smiles and the heartfelt conversations.

Sherry and Big daddy Kookamungus (some of you may know him as Steven) for making me realize that even though my life seemed like a living hell at times, I was never alone.

Linda, for making me realize my strengths and that I have the capability to achieve a lot more than I give myself credit for, such as becoming a vegan after watching just a few class videos.

Sue, for being my in-school mom, phoning me every class I missed when I was thinking of quitting, making sure I was always fed whenever she thought I was hungry, and, lastly, entertaining us with her excitement about her newly learned use of the word “troll”.

Damien, even though you thanked me for helping you through school, I owe you equal thanks for helping me.  You had me constantly doing my best out of fear of losing our bet, which, by the way, I won.  And Damien, feel free to feel famous like you said you would.

Lastly and most importantly, my family.  Though they never said it, I always felt like I let them down by dropping out of school, so hearing them continuously tell me how proud they are of me made it a lot easier to stick it through to the end.  Thanks to their support, I managed to achieve marks similar to the ones I was always jealous of my sister for.

Like our stories, our thanks go to different staff and students, but they are all for the same reason.  For helping us get here today.  But do not let that take away from your own accomplishment.  You may owe your family, new friends, and teachers a lot of thanks, but it was your choice to take those first steps of getting here.  We were all here just to help you along the way.

It was all of your hard work and dedication that got you to grad, no one else’s.  Just like it will be your hard work and dedication that will take you to your next stage in life, and, to those of you who are afraid of that next stage, don’t be.

Because, today is not only “the day you graduated high school”, it is the day that you proved that you could overcome your biggest fear and hardships, and the day that you proved to yourself that you can do anything you want to do, and you will have your diploma to remind you of that every single day.

So put your diploma somewhere where you will always see it.  That way, whenever you get discouraged or afraid, you can look at that piece of paper and remind yourself, “I can do it, “ because I know each of you can achieve success.  That is why you are all graduating today.

And when I say success I mean a life full of happiness, not a bank account full of money.  As long as you are doing what you love and what makes you happy, even if you’re not rich, you are being successful.

So as we celebrate today—not as the last day of school, but as the start on our road to success- I want to say congratulations AEC’s class of 2012.  We did it!

This is my 13^th year in adult education, and for 13 years in a row I have given an address to adults graduating from high school.  This is also my 60^th year in school.  That’s right.  I’ve either been a student or a teacher or an administrator since 1952.  Some of your parents weren’t even born in 1952.  So it’s time for a change for me.

After many years of teaching high school, I started my career in adult education in 1999 at McLeod Adult Learning Centre, just across the river.  A lot of centres started in 1999, including AEC.  Our first graduating class was 17 people.  I have vivid memories of that year and those seventeen people.  In addition to being the school’s program coordinator, I had also taught most of them.  Over the last 13 years I have kept all my speeches to graduating classes, so I hunted down my speech to the McLeod Class of 2000.

Looking it over, I see that I called them heroes.  I have a literature background, so I compared what my students did that year to what classic heroes in literature do.  They take on an impossible quest or task, descend into the underworld to face their demons and, most often, emerge victorious—stronger, better people.

In fact, one student from that first graduating class named Bonnie provided a vivid example of the hero.  Bonnie was well into her forties.  She was forced out of school in Grade 9, and had worked at a series of bartending jobs ever since.  She once told the story of how she had dispatched an unruly drunk by clubbing him several times over the head with the receiver from a nearby pay phone.  School had not been kind to Bonnie.  She had been bullied, labeled, made to feel stupid, and, eventually, quit or was expelled.

As part of my Grade English class, like many of you this year, Bonnie needed to write the Grade 12 provincial exam.  We had done our practice and were as prepared as we could be, but on the way to the exam on the first day, Bonnie had a full-blown panic attack, to the point where she needed to pull her car over so she could relax and breathe.  When she finally herself down to the point where she could drive, she made her way to school and wrote the exam—about a half hour late.  How did she do?  Well, she got 81% on her essay and 85% on the exam overall.  The provincial average was 67%.  That night, all those years later, she made a point of calling the one teacher she the one teacher from Grade 9 that she felt she could talk to.  She was hosting a grad party, so we could all hear her.  “Hey, Mr. Gaston.  Mr Gaston, it’s Big B.”  Even 25 years later, he knew who she was.  “Guess what, Mr. Gaston.  I did it!”

Bonnie’s is the classic story of the hero, someone who decides to face their demons.  Many of your stories, I am sure, are similar.  You’ve done something quite remarkable.  Coming back to school as an adult—with all the adult responsibilities like work and family, not to mention the anxiety, especially if school is not —is not an easy thing.

Being a hero doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be a fireman rushing into a burning building.  It simply means putting yourself in a position where you could fail, having the courage to take a risk, even in the small things.  I know the journey most of you have been on.  I’ve seen hundreds of adults graduate just like you today.  I’ve seen some amazing transformations.  I love it when I see hesitant students “lock in” and get it done.

We’ve just posted a cartoon on our Facebook page depicting stick figures in various postures ascending a staircase.  The figure on the bottom stair sits glumly saying, “I won’t do it.”  The figures on each stair gradually become more animated, with the one at the top leaping in the air in triumph.  A phrase accompanies each stair level, starting at the bottom.

I won’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I want to do it.
How do I do it?
I’ll try to do it.
I can do it.
I will do it.
Yes, I did it!

So, to you, AEC’s Class of 2012—Congratulations.  Yes, you did it!

[P.S. This is my final blog as Director of AEC, as I am due to retire shortly.  I have had a long and interesting career as an educator, but I have to say that the most interesting and rewarding years have been in adult education. ]

I was pretty good in high school math.  English—not so much.  Final marks:  Math-99%, English 63%.

So what did I do after high school?  Naturally, I went on to take English at university—choosing to major in my worst high school subject.  Now, I liked English; I just wasn’t very good at it.  The very first essay I handed in to my freshman English prof scored a 50%.  How did that make me feel—well, I felt like an imposter.  All the other people were way smarter than I was—they were real English students.  I was a fake.  In fact, I didn’t get a ‘B’ until third year.

To make a long story short, I eventually got the hang of it, but it was a bit of a journey for me.

I still think about Math and how my life might be different if I’d gone the math route.  My name might be Louise, for example.  I think about math so much I started taking up Sudoku puzzles.  I tell myself:  “I’m a math guy.  I can so Sudokus, no problem.”  But more about that later.

In addition to Sudokus, I can be a reno TV junkie.  One of my favourites is Disaster DIY.  Do you know it?  Typically, the show features a couple where the husband has started some kind of reno project, then is either overwhelmed or loses interest, or both.  The wife then calls Brian Baumler, an expert handyman, to come and clean up the mess, correct the mistakes, teach some skills and get the wayward husband back on track.  Inevitably, the husband learns, gains confidence and is able to tackle a project on his own.

Let me guess how those husbands first felt—they felt like imposters..  All other husbands were way smarter and more skilled than they were.  They weren’t real handimen.  They were fakes.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

This is the first part of a learning cycle.  We are fakes.  Everyone else is way smarter than we are.  Everyone else has it together and we don’t.  Just think of any time you stepped or were pushed out of your comfort zone.  Maybe you’ve coached your kid or taken up a new sport or activity, taken some kind of course, or started a new job.  And most likely, you’re at a point now—with your graduation about to be behind you—where you may well be on to something new, something unfamiliar, something likely to challenge your skills and your confidence.  Some next step for you.

If that’s the case, just be ready for how you’re liable to feel—like an imposter, like you’re in overwhelm, like everyone else has it together and you don’t—and put it in perspective.

When I did a Sudoku on line—I’m a math guy, remember—it gave me an evaluation.  I came in the first percentile.  Do you know what that means?  That means that 99% of the other people who’ve done the same puzzle were faster than I was and didn’t make any mistakes.  In other words, in the Sudoku world, I’m a big loser.  But with Sudoku—the stakes are pretty low, after all—I can put it in perspective.  I know that, if I persist, I’ll eventually get the hang of it.

So let me encourage you, whatever your next step is, to persist when it’s uncomfortable, to keep the faith in yourself, to realize you will eventually get the hang of it.  Otherwise, you rob yourself of the chance to rise to the challenge.

As Wayne Gretzky says:  “100% of the shots you don’t take will not go in the net.”

Recently a former student named Meghann Mclachlan participated on a panel that came to AEC to talk about the transition from our centre to post-secondary.  Meghann is now in third year at the University of Winnipeg with a double major in Sociology and Criminal Justice.

The transformation in Meghann over the last three years has been astonishing.  This past year she was published and credited in her professor’s new text book.  This was Meghann?  The single mother of two who dropped out of school and came to AEC to finish up?  The high school drop-out who worked at a series of dead-end jobs until she got tired of where she was headed?  The same Meghann who went to university to be a lawyer based on the thought that important people are doctors or lawyers?  “Well, I don’t like science,” she said to herself, “so I guess I’ll be a lawyer then.”  The same Meghann whose first couple of essays I edited to help her with her faulty grammar and organization?

If you talk to Meghann today, she’ll tell you about how university is more than marks and credits, and worth all the hard work, just because it opens up a whole new world of thinking and possibilities.  Meghann is in a different space now than she was when she first walked through our doors.

One thing she said really stuck with me.  “You don’t have to be that smart,” she said, “You just need some ‘butt’ time.”  Well, she actually used a ruder term.  But basically, there are times you just need to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair and “Get ‘er done,” as Manitoba’s own John Montgomery might say.  It’s not that you need to be fantastically smart to do well at university; you just need to recognize when to apply yourself, and then simply apply yourself.

I have kept a file, as I am in the habit of doing about topics that interest me, on the transition from high school to post-secondary.  Several articles ask students for first-year survival tips.  So besides Meghann’s ‘butt’ time, here are a few others:

University is nothing to be afraid of—Professors provide summaries, reading schedules, online notes and PowerPoint slides.  The trick is, of course, to pay attention to them.  As Meghann said, you don’t have to be a genius; you just have to apply yourself.

Get lots of sleep—you need to be alert in class.  Doing a slack-jawed head bob during a slow-moving lecture will not do much for your learning.

Get to class early—so you can…

Sit in the front row—Not heard of the famous “Magic T”?  Statistically, studies have shown that students sitting across the front and down the middle of classes get higher marks.  No why would that be?  Besides, why fight the statistical odds?

Read your syllabus—Professor will hand out a detailed course outline on the first day.  Read it, mark dates for assignments in your calendar, and check your schedule of readings in order to…

Stay on top of readings—Most courses have scheduled readings with dates attached to them.  Keep up.  Even better, prepare for classes by doing the assigned readings ahead of time.  Study up on how to take notes on what you’re reading by googling one of the many websites that explain methods and tips.

Talk to your professors—especially if you are unclear about the parameters of an assignment or where you stand in the course.  All professors hold office hours.  Make an appointment.

Plan your time—You will find yourself with all kinds of unstructured time in university, which has undone many a student.  Get a planner.  Read up on time management if you lack that skill.

Check the rules—Especially about citing sources, bibliographies and the like.  Do you know the difference between MLA, APA and Chicago, and do you know which style your professor prefers?  And also when you don’t understand an assignment, you need to learn to be assertive as a post-secondary student.  Therefore…

Ask questions—Of course, you can’t ask questions if you don’t attend class, so that’s another issue.  (“Did anything happen in class during the last two weeks?” is not a question you want to be asking.)  When you’re in tutorials and lectures, stay engaged by probing when you need understanding.  And take advantage of office hours, mentioned above.

I could go on here, but that’s enough for now.  Drop-out rates at post-secondary are notoriously high, but I’m convinced that attending with at least some knowledge of the transition from high school will serve you well, and keep you from wasting your time and money.

Richard is a fellow adult educator I had the pleasure of working with a few years ago.  He liked to challenge students who make excuses for not showing up to class or not handing in assignments.

Richard would ask, ”Why are you here?”

His student would say, “Well, I really want to get this credit.”

Then Richard would say, “I really want a red Corvette.”

Or a student would say, “I really want to graduate,” and Richard would say, “I really want a red Corvette.”

Richard’s comment usually drew blank stares.  Until he explained himself.  More of that later.

In Pursuit of Happiness
A recent W5 Documentary, called In Pursuit of Happiness, ran a few years ago on TV.  The program sought to find out what made people happy.  Their approach was simple—visit different parts of Canada, find people who are genuinely happy with their lives, and try to figure out what makes them tick.

The filmmakers discovered what we have heard often enough—that wealth and money do not necessarily mean happiness, and quoted Robert Kennedy:  “The gross national product,” Kennedy said, ”does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debates or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.  It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”  Not long ago, the Winnipeg Free Press ran the story of a North Kildonan man who had won millions of dollars in a lottery, and ended up hanging himself in his garage.  So if millions of dollars won’t make us happy, what will?

The documentary did determine seven traits of genuinely happy people.  Happy people:
–Are optimistic
–Savor life
–Value friends & family
–Are helpful
–Are grateful
–Have goals

 I want to focus on one of these traits.

Happy People Have Goals
Maybe I’m just slow to learn, but I didn’t fully realize when I first became an adult educator just how important goals were for adult students returning to finish high school.  To propel you through the homework, the stress, the competing demands of work and family, and sometimes the boredom, you need a goal.  And the clearer the goal the better.

Because what happens in adult education if your goal isn’t compelling enough?  You know what happens.  People quit..

And it has to be your goal.  It can’t be your girlfriend’s goal, or your husband’s goal, your father’s goal or your mother-in-law’s goal.  This may sound obvious, but I can’t count the number of times adult students are dragged in to our centre by other people.  Frankly, it will never happen for those students until they get it.  It has to be your goal.

Happy people have goals.

And your goal has to be specific.  Adult students often come to here with the general goal of getting their Grade 12.  When we ask what they want to do beyond that, many times their answers are vague.  I once had a student who said he wanted to go to university because of the frat parties he’d seen in movies.  Come to think of it, his mother also brought him in.  Needless to say, he did not succeed.  One of our challenges as adult educators here is to help students clarify their goals.  I would go so far as to say it’s perhaps the most important task we have, because I think goals underpin everything.

The NA Factor
One of the statistics I paid attention to at a previous centre was whether or not potential grads thought the grad ceremony was important—what I call the NA (Not Attending) Factor.  At registration one September, we asked potential grads if they wanted to attend our graduation ceremony.  If they did, we checked ‘yes’ on their registration forms and recorded their heights so we would be able to order the right size gown.  Most of our potential graduates wanted to attend the ceremony, and some even said how important it was to wear the cap and gown.  Always, though, there were a handful of students who rejected the grad ceremony outright, as unimportant, irrelevant, even kind of adolescent.  Just before the Christmas break, I prepared a list of graduates, recording the heights of those who wanted to come to grad and the letters NA (for Not Attending) by those who’d told me they weren’t interested.  Then I maintained the list, tracking courses for each of them and making sure everyone had the required credits by June.  The funny thing was, that year the majority of the NAs didn’t make it.  Only 9% of those who said they would attend grad didn’t make it, as compared to a whopping 63% of the NAs.

What’s The Best Time to Plant a Tree?
Adults coming back to school have great hopes and dreams.  But it’s one thing to have a goal, and quite another to understand how to act on that goal.  I came across a question.  “What’s the best time to plant a tree?”  Think about that.  Were you thinking seasons?  Spring?  Fall?  Here’s the answer:  “The best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago.  The second best time is today.”

Author John Maxwell said this:  “You may not be where you’re supposed to be.  You may not be what you want to be.  You don’t have to be what you used to be.  And you don’t have to ever arrive.  You just need to learn to be the best you can be right now.”

Be the best you can be right now.  In fact all you have is now.  You can’t change the past, and you can’t control the future.

That’s what Richard is getting at when he said, “I really want a red Corvette” to students who don’t attend or don’t hand in work.  When these students gave him blank looks, he explained:  “Will someone sell me a red Corvette?  Yes.  Can I afford one?  Probably, if I make a few sacrifices.  But the reason I don’t have one is that I don’t want it badly enough to change anything.”

What’s you next goal.  How badly do you want to achieve it?

Some of you, I know, think it may be too late, you’re too old (You’ll be the same age no matter what you do!).

Here’s something to think about that I came across:
So stop waiting…
Until your car is paid off.
Until you get a new car or home.
Until your kids leave the house.
Until you go back to school.
Until you finish school.
Until you lose ten pounds.
Until you gain ten pounds.
Until you get married.
Until you get a divorce.
Until you have kids.
Until you retire.
Until summer.
Until spring.
Until winter.
Until fall.
Until you die.

What’s your red Corvette?  Do you want it badly enough?  Can you figure out what you need to do now to give yourself the best chance of achieving it?

I love football.  It was the first sport I played that I was any good at.  I can watch any game from peewee to professional and get engaged in it.  I love the CFL, and I love the NFL even more, because the National Football League has arguably the biggest, fastest, most talented athletes of any sport in the world.

One of those athletes is 29-year-old Israel Idonijee.  Who is he?  If you don’t follow football, you may not know.  Israel plays defensive end for the Chicago Bears.  He stands 6 feet, six inches tall and weighs in at something like 270 pounds.  He’s smart, fearless, fast like spit and on target to lead his team in quarterback sacks this year.

What does this have to do with adult education?  Well, first, Israel is a local story.  He is a Nigerian immigrant who comes from Brandon, Manitoba, and, as far as I know, is the only Manitoban to have made the NFL.  Second, while Israel has undeniable athletic ability, his success is really a story of remarkable persistence in the face of overwhelming odds.  He really shouldn’t be where he is today.

First, Israel didn’t even play football until Grade 12 in high school, and that was in a nine-man rural league, hardly a breeding ground for professional athletes.  The coaches just told him to chase the guy with the ball.  Probably because of his size, he was invited out to the Manitoba Bisons where he sat on the bench until the final game of his third season.  Did he ever want to quit?  You bet he did.  He played his next and last year with U of M, was selected all-Canadian and invited to play in the East-West Shrine bowl with American players.  It was here he really began to believe in his abilities.  He was signed by Cleveland, injured, and then picked up by Chicago.  He has worked his way from special teams, to a rotation on the defensive line, to starter.

Israel is a testimony to what can happen once you believe in yourself.  Many football players with equal skills and better training and opportunities never make it because they never learn to believe they can.  “If you can’t see it, that’s your No. 1 hindrance,” Israel says.  “Fortunately for me, I was able to break out of that and say, ‘You know what?  I can play in the NFL.  I belong in the NFL.’”

Have a goal?  Think it’s beyond your reach?  Think of Israel Idonijee.

[Source: “Prairie football project proves sky’s the limit” by Stephen Brunt, The Globe and Mail, Nov. 6, 2010]

There was a very interesting column a couple of Junes ago in the Free Press by Gordon Sinclair about Burton Cummings.  St. John’s High School had just had its 100^th reunion.  It was a huge event with a gala dinner, dance and concert where Burton Cummings and his touring band performed.  A big deal and a huge success by all accounts.  And as well as all the success and money record sales, Burton Cummings has received a Juno Award, has had two buildings named after him, and was recently awarded the Order of Canada by Governor-General Michaelle Jean.  So it was only fitting that St. John’s High School showcase Burton Cummings along with other famous grads, such as Ken Kostick, Monty Hall and Chris Walby.  If a school is a hundred years old and as big as St. John’s, you’re bound to have a few famous grads.

Problem is, Burton Cummings is not a St. John’s grad.  He was kicked out when he was 16 years old.  Not only was he kicked out, but according to his blog, the principal kind of mocked his goal to be a musician.

So the rest is Canadian music history, first with the Guess Who and then as a solo artist, Burton Cummings achieved the kind of star status very few achieve.  As the saying goes, the road to rock stardom is paved with the bones of wannabe musicians.

So for someone like Burton Cummings, who needs a high school diploma, right?  Well actually, wrong.  According to Sinclair’s column, Linda Bulka, the current principal at St. John’s High School found out last week that Burton had never graduated, and is hoping to grant him some legitimate credits based on his accomplishments and have him wear a hat and gown, and walk across the stage to receive his diploma from St. John’s High School.

What a great story, right?  But, the most interesting thing about Sinclair’s column was how Cummings felt about being kicked out of school.  Apparently, when Linda Bulka asked him to come into the same office he’d been in when he was expelled from school, he wouldn’t do it and his eyes welled up with tears—it was that painful a memory.

Here’s how Gordon Sinclair ended his column:
“I think there’s more than one lesson learned from Burton Cummings’ time in high school. There’s the one students can learn about the rewards of doing what you do best to the best of your ability. And then there’s the one principals and teachers can learn about how not treating students as individuals, and inflicting harsh punishment, can leave people with the kind of life-long pain that never goes away. No matter how rich and famous one becomes. And no matter how many prestigious awards one wins. As for finally being awarded a high school diploma, it might not be as prestigious as the Order of Canada or as lucrative as all those gold records. But it’s gotta be the sweetest of them all.”

Over the years of my involvement in adult-education, I’ve seen this same scenario a number of times.  I think it’s called “Unfinished Business”:

I had more than a few accomplished adults see me about getting a high school diploma.  These have included the head of safety training for a major Manitoba utility, an accountant who worked for a large municipality, a registered nurse, a psychology graduate from U of W, a retired police officer in his fourth career, and—my favorite—an MBA graduate who received his high school diploma from AEC and his PhD in the same year.  Each well past high school age, some well-established in their careers, into their second or third career or even retired.  Each accomplished.  Each without a high school diploma and wanting to deal with that unfinished business of a high school education.

So what you accomplish at AEC is important; and in some ways it’s a lot more difficult to come to school as an adult who has others priorities beyond school—families, jobs and other obligation that you don’t have a teenager.  But you may also have found that high school education means more this time around.  And you can use it to be successful in your next step, whatever step that may be.

For several years now, I have been clipping articles about what happens to boys in the education system.

As a high school teacher, I didn’t notice the problem so much, but I really started to notice it when I became an adult educator.

What’s the problem, you ask?  The problem is that boys may be dropping out of their own education, leaving an important segment of the population and our social fabric marginalized and alienated.

When I became involved in adult education at McLeod Adult Learning Centre in 1999, I thought it interesting that the ratio of female to male students was always higher.  This remains true at AEC, and at most centres I am aware of.

Boys in general, the media tell us, are at much greater risk than girls of being diagnosed with ADHD, dropping out, committing suicide, committing crime and so on.

Just look at the headlines of the articles I’ve collected:
–“Ontario board pushes for ‘boy-friendly school”, Globe & Mail, Oct. 21/09
–“Closing the gender gap”, Wpg. Free Press, Aug. 18/09
–“All girls – better grades”, Globe & Mail, Apr. 21/09
–“How to fix boys”, Maclean’s Jan. 21/08
–“Universities balk at steps to attract men”, National Post, Dec. 3/07
–“Looking for Mr. Chips: Some experts contend that boys suffer from the lack of male teachers”, Maclean’s, Mar. 7/05
–“Women filling universities as schools fail to teach boys”, Wpg. Free Press, 2004

Christine Burrows, in “Jobs for the boys? Learn from the pros” (Wpg. Free Press, Jan. 28/08) describes the trajectory for many boys, especially in Winnipeg’s inner city, of, first, failure at school, then indifference to it, making them prime candidates for gang recruitment.  No need to mention the social costs of that scenario.

Theories abound as to why.  Is it the lack of male teachers?  Has the educational system been feminized to the extent that unique learning needs of males are ignored?  Has the traditional male role in society of, as one writer put, “using your strength in the service of others”, been attacked and devalued?

Some educational programs are attempting to have all male classes or schools where boys, who have normally been told to sit down and be quiet, are taught in ways that allow them to get up and move as they learn.  The Winnipeg Sun recently ran an article about a high school in Germany that brought its drop-out rate down to almost zero by having a male and female teacher work with the same class of students throughout high school years.

At AEC, teachers try to use ‘active learning’ strategies in their classrooms to help engage students in their learning, moving them from the idea that learning is “sitting and getting.”  Adults do learn differently and are less likely to tolerate “sitting and getting.”  The stakes are high in adult education, and adults, male or female, taking the time to return to school either want to know how they will benefit from it or want a different experience than they may have had in previous schooling.

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence makes reference to a famous experiment conducted by researchers involving children and marshmallows. 

Children, roughly kindergarten age, were brought into a room by themselves and given a single marshmallow.  They were told they could eat it immediately, or, if they were willing to wait, they could receive a second marshmallow.  The researcher then left the children alone for a period of time.

The experiment was meant to test impulse control or the ability of children to delay their gratification.  Some children ate the marshmallow immediately, some waited then eventually succumbed, and some, by developing various strategies like avoiding eye contact with the marshmallow, were able to wait it out and receive a second treat.

The really interest aspect of this experiment, however, is that it was longitudinal, that is, they followed up the original children into their late teens and found those who were able to wait for their second marshmallow were more successful—better marks, better jobs, higher salaries, higher acceptance into post-secondary, more leadership skills and so on.

Scary to think that your life’s path is set at age four or five!

But I don’t think it has to be.  Self-awareness is the key.  How is your impulse control, or your ability to delay gratification?  To what extent have you ‘tamed the elephant” (See previous blog.)?  We are all capable of changing if we want something bad enough.

Watch the Marshmallow Test on YouTube:
watch?v=6EjJsPylEOY

We tend to turn up our noses at the thought of working in the service industry at places like McDonald’s.  Service industry jobs have been portrayed as unfulfilling, repetitive, requiring little skill or thought.

However, Maclean’s magazine ran an interesting article by Stephanie Findlay in its August 31, 2009 edition, suggesting there is much to be gained from these jobs.  “In Praise of Dead–End Jobs” features interviews with a number of successful people describing what they learned serving food, stocking shelves, picking fruit, sweeping floors and so on.

Not surprisingly, so-called McJobs have taught people to appreciate their opportunity to get an education and to recognize, by comparison, what a fulfilling job actually is.

More surprising is the revelation that such jobs can actually help workers gain valuable life and work skills, which can then help them advance in their careers.  One person learned to cope at his dead-end job by developing his people skills, which in turn gave him direction and a huge leg up in what he eventually chose to do.  Another came to the realization that we shouldn’t derive all our self-worth from our work.  Retail and service jobs can also teach how to deal with difficult and demanding people, a invaluable skill in any career.

Employers are now looking at resumes for past work in the service industry, because they know if someone can stick it out at, say, as a cook in a fast-food place or as a waiter in a restaurant, chances are they have developed employability skills that make them valuable in any job and any level.

So maybe it’s time to re-assess the role of all those dead-end jobs.  One of he quotes we’ve put up on our bulletin board at AEC is poet Maya Angelou’s:  “If you don’t like something change it.  If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”  Don’t like your lousy job?  Change your attitude.  You might be in for a surprise.