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.