This is a beautiful picture with a great quote. We are all stars in our own ways. When we take time and are present, the stardom is revealed.
Quote of the day – Ralph Waldo Emerson
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms. I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders. I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs. I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry. I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry. I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.13 responses »
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ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Thanks so much for reblogging my post:)
You are welcome.
I spent time on the cushion, meditating with a concert pianist, a truly talented individual but his self image disappeared when even considering playing Chopin or Mozart.
He was so unworthy,
I shared with him that just because Beethoven had super wondrous ability his happy, his pleasure playing was not any greater than yours.
Took a while before he would entertain that idea at all.
It is true, I can have no talent and gain bundles of happiness just being there.
It is like a child who loses themselves in the play. It is about the quality of their play as the quality and their perfection is measured in losing themselves in their play. I read today that meditation shares the root with measure, but the author was careful this was not calculative. It was losing one’s self in one’s being and becoming.
Oh, I like adding the depth and idea of quality of play or losing oneself as in going below the ego as connected to happiness.
Can you explain the meditation shares the root with measure?
As Barry Sanders said, when asked how do you know, run like you do?
I do not think, he responded.
I would put forth an idea that great performance,,art, music, composers, athletes know their discipline beyond thought, almost organically etched into their DNA their spirit their muscles.
Tory Holt a receiver for the St. Louis Rams says Kurt Warner could be blindfolded, take a snap drop back the regular five steps and deliver the ball to a specific point, for a specific pass route, a short wide out, about twelve yards down field and over a little.
They had practiced till the it enter the body. That is how you can repeat a play like that with intense pressure of say a Super Bowl. Another level of play.
Beethoven or Mozart have played composed until what they express goes beyond thought.
Thought, cognition is a barrier to peak performance, speed, quickness and opportunity, in my opinion.
As a fellow blogger, stimulating ideas, discussion is a goal, now I find myself wondering about performance,quality of losing oneself and the chemistry of a
Professional say football team.
Take two individuals, say you and me, we both are attracted to sports. Like fantasy football, we have so much money allotted, we need to select a team.
What parameters are most important to you?
Some owners think assembling talent is all that is needed.
I believe that is about as wrong as you can be.
Talent blended with chemistry.
You could drop one player, like Terrell Owens in the middle of a great team and that team will fracture under pressure.
On the other hand their are players like Pete Rose, you despise him if he is in the other team, but every team needs a spark plug, a motivator, an under sized under talented heart and soul of the team.
Example the Philadelphia phillies were star laden but lost in the playoffs year after year. They traded for Pete rose, he was playing first base by then and not the star he once was but you could not not play hurt, not try, not brag, not taunt, not act like a world champion with Pete there.
Pete made things happen, a leader by action, invaluable.
So mindfully how would you select?
Those are challenging questions Marty. I coached hockey for almost 35 years. Most of it was at the club level where we picked our teams. The mistakes I made choosing were often thinking talent would override chemistry. Chemistry is hard to get a fix on; whereas we think we understand talent. The most successful teams were those where we found the right mix of talent and chemistry, mixing them throughout the season.
The teams which had success also are the ones which the players stay in touch with us as coaches.
Chemistry, yes invisible, no?
Well, the maxim, he has a motor running, passion is something innate, nothing your going to I still or create.
So from that stand point, I will draft like San Antonio Spurs, somehow in this day and age coach takes less, stars take less, play in a smaller market, team and winning are bought into as a unified goal. They just hired the first full time female coach without fan fare or pr stunts.
.
Jim Harbaugh took less money as a quarterback, saying we need offensive linemen.
So a player like Ray Lewis, Dick Butkus, Derek Brooks, hacksaw Reynolds are Invaluable.
On great teams the veterans police behavior and some mores of the team.
Another organization that wins is New England and Bill Bellicheck.
.
Hockey such an emotional physical, intimidating sport.
Coaching is important. I had one terrible year the last decade I coached. It was because I made poor choices. I learned and we spent time phoning former coaches talking about the players available to us. It made a world of difference.
One of the things we emphasized was reducing penalty minutes which is hard in hockey. Most years we were the least penalized team in our league by a large margin. You could see the discipline filter into our parts of the game with better team defense and our goalies won accolades as a result. As well, we were amongst the top 2-3 offensive teams each year. The one year we did not do well we were a heavily penalized team.
I like your choices of teams i.e. San Antonio and New England. In hockey, the current coaches who gets a lot out of players are Barry Trotz, now in Washington, and Mike Babcock, in Detroit. I met both and they are polar opposites personality and temperament wise, but get lots out of the players. Trotz is a consummate player’s coach and Babcock gets the players who fit his mold.
It is an emotional game, but with the right environment the knee-jerk reactions are more controllable. I played goal and see it as a Zen-like position translating well into my coaching.
Reflection of today’s reality.Beautiful post.
Thank you Jalal.
awesome new blog to follow! TY, Ivon.
You are welcome.