Plan for March 5th

March 5, 2014  Week 1 Leadership and Government 

Apprentice Level

Personal Leadership:

1. Watch this TED video by Amy Cuddy about how your body language shapes who you are: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html  
Pick 1 of the power stances and do that stance every morning and every evening starting now through the month of March.  Email which  one you are going to do to Sister Allen by Saturday 9:00pm March 1st.  veronnicaallen@gmail.com

2. Watch this TED video by Shawn Achor about the happy secret to better work: http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html

a. How has your attitude prevented or assisted you in your education? Please answer this with several sentences and email this to Sister Allen by the time and date above. What I mean is to think about this. How are you helping or hindering yourself.
b. Write 3 things you are grateful each day for 1 week. Being your list to class on March 5th.

Government:
1. Bring your drawings for Article 1 to class so we can make a book for each student.  The remaining Articles will be assigned during class on March 5th.

Book Discussion:

1. Read Animal Farm by George Orwell:

You can read it online here: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html

--You may listen to the audio book as long as you follow along with the book so you can mark interesting facts and take notes.
2. Write a list of every characters name and the type of animal that character is. Bring this to class..We will have an activity.

Choose 1 or more of the following to present in class:

---Do any of the animals remind you of a human you know or have learned of in history? Give examples and details.

---Research George Orwell. Be able to explain why he wrote this book, what is he trying to say, what do we need to be watching for in our own society and nation? What was happening in history etc…

---Research or read a book about a person who has done hard things that qualifies that person to be a hero and give a Hero Report up to 3 minutes in length.

---Research and present on several forms of government such as: monarchy, democracy, communism, socialism, dictatorship, anarchy, 

---Call Sister Allen with your own idea for what you will share not listed above. Call me Monday morning by noon 3rd of March or email me at veronnicaallen@gmail.com 801-850-6554.

 Journeyman Level

 1.Read letters 1-5 (22 pages) of  Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?  Take notes and come prepared to discuss the readings, coinage, terminology.

Do one of the following or create your own idea related to the readings:

1. For several days, each evening, sort all the coinage collected by each member of the family. Return all coined dated after 1965.Record how many pre-1965 coins you’ve found. Discuss your findings in class and come with a hypothesis as to why.

2. Record the instances in which you hear someone say, “It’s free!” It doesn’t cost anything”  or something similar to that statement. Who said it was free? What product or service is free? Who pays?

3. Watch one of these old moives and explain how it relates to Letter #2. Harry’s War, You Can’t Take It With You, or Mr. Deed Goes To Town..I'm not sure if they are even available these days.

4.  Read Not Yours to Give by Davey Crocket and explain what the farmer meant and what Davey learnt. Read here: http://www.fee.org/library/detail/not-your-to-give-2#axzz2tQtPRMAu  Listen here: http://youtu.be/uoEJ-D2bgc0      
Watch here: http://youtu.be/LRFaGi2lqrY

5. Research the price of 5 pounds of sugar or flour starting in 1926, 1945, 1988, and 2014. Share results.

6. Ask your parents what the price of certain items were when they were young. Share results, make a chart...

7. Research the value of American currency against other countries over the past 20 years.

 Master Level

1.  Read TJED for Teens Chapter 6.  Find a jar or box and bring it to class. I will give you the teen questions printed up to use over the next days while we answer and report back in April.

2.  Take the Enneagram test for free (10 minutes short version of the $10, 40 minute test) here: ttp://www.enneagraminstitute.com/dis_sample_36.asp#.Uv_1SmJdWjd

---Come prepared to talk about the chapter, your findings about yourself, and the personality test…  Can you guess my personality?  Email me your guess and I will guess about you. Email me by Tuesday night say 10pm  veronnicaallen@gmail.com

This is affecting the economy...what would Uncle Eric say about this?

Why Freedom is Losing: The Battle for Our Future – Oliver DeMille

Posted: 12 Feb 2014 02:00 AM PST

De Jouvenel said it all in one profound paragraph:

“From the twelfth to the eighteenth century governmental authority grew continuously. The process was understood by all who saw it happening; it stirred them to incessant protest and…reaction. In later times its growth has continued at an accelerated pace…And now we no longer understand the process, we no longer protest, we no longer react. This quiescence of ours is a new thing, for which Power has to thank the smoke-screen in which it has wrapped itself…Masked in anonymity, it claims to have no existence of its own, and to be but the impersonal and passionless instrument of the general will.”

Let’s break this down, point by point, to understand it better:

• “From the twelfth to the eighteenth century governmental authority grew continuously. The process was understood by all who saw it happening; it stirred them to incessant protest and…reaction.”

As kings, rulers, and aristocratic upper classes took more and more power to themselves, and increasingly more over the regular people, the regular people saw what was happening and tried to stop it.
This culminated in the American Revolution and French Revolution, which happened within a few years of each other.
The American Revolution focused on replacing the old monarchial-aristocracy with a new, constitutionally established government of freedom for all classes. In contrast, the French Revolution emphasized killing off the old — literally executing royals and aristocrats in the hope that with their demise the regular people would gain liberty.
The American method quickly proved more effective in promoting freedom.

• “In later times its growth has continued at an accelerated pace.”

Today’s regular citizen has less power than people did even a few generations ago, and our grandchildren will have even less — unless something changes very soon.

• “And now we no longer understand the process, we no longer protest, we no longer react. This quiescence of ours is a new thing, for which Power has to thank the smoke-screen in which it has wrapped itself…Masked in anonymity, it claims to have no existence of its own, and to be but the impersonal and passionless instrument of the general will.”

When those increasing their power were kings and aristocracies, the regular people knew what was happening.
Today, when the new ruling class is a nameless, faceless, unknown elite, the regular people do nothing. They don’t know who is taking away their freedoms, or what to do about it.
Yet power is being lost by the regular people — and gained by the ruling elite — at higher rates than ever before. The gap between the 90 percent and the 10 percent is drastically increasing, but not nearly as much as the gap between the 10 percent and the 1 percent. In fact, the power and wealth gap between the 1 percent and the .1 percent is widening even more rapidly than the others.
If current trends continue, a tiny, ultra-powerful elite will rule our formerly free nations in a way never known before in history — and hardly anyone knows who the new rulers are. They rule by policy, influence, spin, currency transfers, behind the scenes. But their power is still growing.
De Jouvenel wrote of this in 1945, and today the power of this ruling elite only increases. In the conclusion to his great book, On Power, he warned:

“We are the witnesses of a fundamental transformation of society, of a crowning expansion of power…A beneficent authority will watch over every man from the cradle to the grave…controlling his personal development and orienting him towards the most appropriate use of his faculties.
“By a necessary corollary, this authority will be the disposer of society’s entire resources, with a view to getting from them the highest possible return…Power takes over…the whole business of public and private happiness and…all possessions, all productive energies, and all liberties should be handed over to it…The business is one of setting up an immense patriarchy, or…a matriarchy, since we are now told that collective authority should be animated by maternal instincts.”

Today’s Americans are the recipients of this prophecy come true. Today’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, announces that the new “Health Care Law May Result in 2 Million Fewer Full-Time Workers.”
Because Obamacare requires much higher costs for employers to maintain full-time employees, there is a nationwide trend to downsizing employee workweeks. People are supposed to tighten their belts, make do on less income, and pay higher taxes. This is a massive shifting point for the economy.
Many corporations are avoiding the increased taxes and health care costs by moving their operations offshore, to other nations, citing less regulation and more business-friendly tax codes. It’s hard to blame them for seeking greener pastures and shores with more freedom.
Families that were once supported by one wage earner now can’t make ends meet with the incomes of both parents — so they go deeper into debt.
The American Dream is dying.
A new ruling class is rising behind the scenes.
A different future — a lowering standard of living — awaits our children and grandchildren.
Unless something changes.
Regular Americans walk past dusty books on shelves (full of real solutions for our current national problems), click on the television, and settle in for an evening of entertainment…
Somewhere there is a fading memory…of fiddling while Rome burns.

*******************

 Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of theCenter for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

February Inspirements...updates 1/27

Apprentice Level…knowledge

Personal Leadership:

1. ?How Essential Skills: Select a chapter that you need to develop more within yourself. Share what you plan to focus on with a parent. Write about the chapter in your reflection journal and include what you can do to help yourself and at least 1 goal you plan to do during the month of February for this assignment.

Government:

1. Promises of the Constitution:  Read section 11.

Email Sister Allen significant points that you learned from section 11.  This needs to be a complete thought involving several sentences.  Like a whole paragraph.

2. The Constitution of the United States of America: Read the Preamble and all of Article 1. There are 10 sections within Article 1. Use the booklet you were given so that all students will be on the same page as we discuss this subject in class. Email Sister Allen what you learned about Article 1.

**Please note that there will be no reading assigned from TJED 4 Teens in February. Chapter 5 of this book will be assigned to Master Level this month.

**A guest speaker will meet with the youth at 10:30 on February 5th. Our guest is a member of Toastmasters and will present a short introduction to public speaking skills and impromptu speaking. Keep your fingers crossed.

Choose one of the following:

1. Color, draw, use an art medium to show how you can remember the Preamble.

2. Further research one section from Article 1 and create a presentation no longer than

     2-4 minutes.

3. Collect newspaper clippings on topics related to the Constitution. This can be any of the Articles but you can focus on Article 1 if you would like. Be able to explain the article without reading it word for word. 

4. Research in depth one of the 27 amendments and prepare a presentation. You can use power point, prezi, pictures you draw….be creative.

5. Come up with your own idea related to the reading assignments and call Sister Allen getting approval from her first.

Journeyman Level…understanding...discussion will take place in my car as we drive to our activity.

1. Before reading the below articles PLEASE email Sister Allen an answer to the following question: Q: "What is economics? Why is it important to study economics?"  Do not research these questions just answer as best you can, email your answer to me and then begin the reading assignments.

2. Read Whatever Happened To Penny Candy: pages 7-18 (this is the preface so if 
you don't have the book yet that is okay but try to borrow and read it.)

3. Read articles "A-D" of the following articles: Email Sister Allen a short summary of each article you read including what you learned, what you don’t understand, what you liked, and what you hope to learn by attending this class and reading Uncle Eric’s Whatever Happened to Penny Candy.

A. “The Wondrous Toy Story or Why Study Economics” by Bettina B. Greaves: can’t find on-line. I will send a copy of this to you..please ask me.

B. “Economics for Boys and Girls” by leonard Read: http://www.fee.org/files/doclib/20130707_EconomicsforBoysandGirlsCorrectOrderLeonardRead.pdf

C. “Letter to His Stepbrother” by Abraham Lincoln: http://www.lincolnlogcabin.org/education-kits/Abraham-Lincoln-Lesson-Plans/Lesson-1.pdf (scroll to page six)

D. "Start At The Beginning" by Robert Lefevre: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/start-at-the-beginning#axzz2rdsbNSCF

The following are additional reading that I highly recommend for greater understanding:

E. “Letter To His Grandson” by Fred I. Kent: http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/publications/letter-to-his-grandson

F. “The Cow in the Apartment” by Burton Rascoe: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-cow-in-the-apartment#axzz2qmUCQpSn

G.  “I, Pencil” by Leonard E. Read : http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

Watch this youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBdgOR15dlc

H. "Free Market: Elementary, My Child" by Barbara Bryan: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/free-market-elementary-my-child#axzz2rdsbNSCF

I. “Free Market Economics; A Reader” edited by Bettina Graves: http://mises.org/books/reader.pdf  

This pdf has almost all of the above articles and many many more for your learning and growth. I encourage you to read these this summer. I know I will. It is my plan to print this document into book form. If you’re interested please let me know.

Choose one of the following:

1. Search newspapers for articles related to economics of America and or other countries. Be prepared to summarize what the article is saying and what you think it means based on your current experience with economics.

2. Call several local high schools or colleges/universities. Ask the economics teachers on what school of economics their school text is based. (Keynesian, Monetarist, Austrian). Present on your findings.
3. This level will be using Uncle Eric’s Whatever Happened to Penny Candy during the March and April class.  I don’t think we will be able finish the book during this time. If buying the book is a hardship talk to Sister Allen about it. The above readings are to prepare our minds for Uncle Eric’s book on economics.  I encourage all of you to attend. 

4. Create your own inspirement related to one of the articles that you read. Do the research, come prepared to share while driving to our snowshoeing activity.

Master Level…intelligence

1. TJED 4 Teens: Read chapter 5 “Scholar Phase”.  Email Sister Allen a detailed summary of what you gained from this chapter. Include your thoughts what you are finding hard, what you have questions about, etc.  This will be a self-guided study. I will respond to your emails this time because we will be on a field trip.  Answer this question: How do you plan to improve your thinking skills?

**If you have any questions about assignments, please call Sister Allen before 9am of Monday February 3rd. 

**All emails must be in Sister Allen’s mailbox by 8am Wednesday morning of February 5th.  Email me: veronnicaallen@gmail.com

Feb. 5th 12:30-3:00PM

Snowshoeing