SUS-200313-140606001

Positive Placements started in West Sussex but expanded last summer to include Eastbourne and Hailsham and is now actively working with young people in this area.

The YMCA charity says the project can make a really positive difference.

A young person who benefitted from the scheme said, I would recommend Positive Placements mentoring to anyone it changed me, my confidence, my future.

Positive Placements is a mentoring project run by YMCA DownsLink Group in which young people are matched with volunteer mentors from the local community who support them in weekly meetings of an hour to build confidence, identify their strengths and aspirations, set goals and find opportunities for education or work.

It has been successfully running in other areas of Sussex and Surrey for several years and in the last year alone has supported approximately 80 young people on their journey into work or education.

It opened in the Eastbourne and Hailsham areas in July 2019 and has now recruited and trained its first cohort of volunteers and is matching them with local 16-25 year olds.

Volunteers have been recruited come from a wide range of backgrounds and offer diverse experience and knowledge.

Formal qualifications arent needed - patience, empathy and a non-judgemental approach are the most important skills. In return volunteers receive comprehensive training both face-to-face and online, an enhanced DBS check, ongoing support and personal development, as well as support from others in the role and a dedicated YMCA coordinator to ensure they are confident and comfortable with the mentoring relationship.

One mentor said, Becoming a mentor and working with my mentee has been one of the most rewarding volunteering activities I have done. It has taught me to see situations from another perspective, and together with my mentee we have worked hard to develop a plan and a path forward into employment.

Positive Placements is open to all young people in Eastbourne and Hailsham. If you know of a young person who would benefit or you are interested in volunteering, email Suzanne Cleverley, Eastbournes Positive Placements coordinator,at suzanne.cleverley@ymcadlg.org

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Could you help change the lives of young people in Eastbourne and Hailsham by volunteering for the YMCA? - Eastbourne Herald

Some 40% of people have experienced financial loss due to procrastination.

There is a reason that productivity and time management are hugely important to every entrepreneur - because at the core of it all, most of us are truly trying to figure out why we procrastinate. The side effects of procrastination are very real. Bottom lines, relationships, health, etc., show measurable decline when you chronically procrastinate. Its normal to procrastinate once in a while, but if its baked into almost every activity of your daily life and your seeing negative side effects for yourself - its time to tackle your procrastination tendencies.

Procrastinationcomes in a variety of forms and patterns. The main indicator - you feel guilty. In a world of constant stimulation and endless choices from social media, entertainmentand news outlets, it's hard to make ourselves do less stimulating things - like your work. Im just as guilty as anyone and struggle with the frustration that comes with it.

I spoke with Daria Tsvenger, founder of the Dream Sprint, to ask how she helps her clientsbe a procrastination.Daria uses a variety of brainpower toolsthat she learned at Stanford University as well as from top neuroscientists in the world. Shesworked with hundreds of people who are struggling to get things done andachievepeak mental performance. "And believe me, it's beyond scheduling and time management. It's all in your brain, she tells me.

These are Darias top four tips for beatingprocrastination if you feel like its become aproblem in your life.

4 Ways To Stop Procrastinating And Start Doing | Stephanie Burns

1. No Vague Goals

"Our brain works like a navigation system. If it doesn't have a clear destination, it won't optimize for reaching it.At the beginning of every single day ask yourself "What are the most important things that I want to do today?' Prioritize them, says Tsvenger.Youve probably heard this a million times, but its time to actually do it. Getting your to-dos out of your head and onto a list is key. Once youve done that, then you can actually decide whats most important to get done. Choose the things that will actually move your towards your goals. If you have a lot of to-dos that need to get done, but you dont feel like they will move you towards your goals - either drop them, or outsource them.

2. Name Your Fears

"Our brain is amazing, it's designed to keep us alive & safe by eliminating all potential threats. Back in the day, if your ancestors saw a threat (for example, a tiger), the brain & body will activate its 'fight or flight response. The same thing happens today when our brain perceives work as athreat.' It will keep you from approaching thethreatand this is where procrastination can happen. We delay tasks that seem scary - sometimes not knowing what were scared of. Its biological,Tsvenger says.

So what the way out? Through. Take 10 minutes to write down your top fears regarding the process or the result of your work. Even if they seem small - write them down, so you have more clarity on whats going on beneath the surface.

"For my clients, this works like a spell.For example, one of my recent clients procrastinated on writing content for her social media channels and a job description for the new role she was hiring. We figured out that she was afraid of what people may think about her content - what if she doesn't have enough expertise? Or what if she spends too much time on hiring a person who won't get a job done?Those were just her fears, once she recognized them - her productivity skyrocketed,Tsvenger recounts.

3. Visualize The Process

The biggest mistake I see in the personal development world is this advice of constantly visualizing 'your dreams as they've already happened.This type of thinking is the reason for procrastination. When we give our brain the perfect picture, it doesn't distinguish reality from imagination and it starts to believe that it's already happened. Frequent visualizations cause us to receive thecheap' dopamine (the neurotransmitter of achievement) giving us the illusion of having the desirable outcome without doing the work. This contributes to less motivation and more procrastination when things get difficult. Visualize the process. When we imagine things that weve already primed ourselves to perform, which are doable and close to our reality, this is where the productivity lies, saysTsvenger.

4. Take Micro-Actions

"In order not to scare your brain (and you know what happens when we do this), break down your big tasks into small ones. Schedule them in 30-minute slots, set atimer and get to work, advises Tsvenger. When you take the time to chunk down a big project, name any fears that might crop up and visualize going through the process, its easier to beat procrastination.

It doesnt take a lot of time to set yourself up to be productive. If you take 20-30 minutes to go through these steps, you might just save yourself hours of wasted time scrollingthrough social media!

Read the rest here:
4 Ways To Stop Procrastinating And Start Doing - Forbes

with Heather Gilmore, MSW, LLMSW, BCBA

Since applied behavior analysis is consider a science, ABA aligns itself with the attitudes of science which include determinism, empiricism, experimentation, replication, parsimony, and philosophic doubt.

In this article, we will cover the idea of determinism.

Determinism is one of the many principles that make up the identify of science.

Determinism is based on the idea that behavior is lawful, that it is determined. Determinism assumes that behavior of living organisms is based on cause and effect. That is to say that behavior is caused by something and that behavior can effect other things.

According to the views based on determinism, behavior occurs because of things that happen in the environment.

Determinism states that there is a rational explanation for the behavior of living organisms. There is a natural order to things.

Without the perspective of determinism, the cause of behavior would not be understood. The opposite of determinism is believing that behavior does not have a cause, that behavior happens randomly or that behavior is predetermined.

Determinism is one of the primary characteristics of applied behavior analysis. Determinism assumes that all behavior is the result of certain events. Once these events are identified, future occurrences of a behavior can be modified.

Determinism is a primary characteristic of science which also means that it is a primary characteristic of ABA.

Professionals who help change peoples behavior can use the perspective of determinism to support their work to improve their clients quality of life.

Parents can help improve the lives and behaviors of their children and their families by believing in the concept of determinism, that people can improve their behaviors and quality of life can be improved based upon identifying the causes of behavior.

People, in general, can improve habits, health, and life experiences by believing that there is a rational explanation for the things that happen in life.

Heather is a freelance writer, Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), and social worker. Heather takes interest in topics related to parenting, children, families, personal development, health and wellness, applied behavior analysis, as well as Autism, ADHD, Depression and Anxiety. Contact Heather if you would like to inquire about obtaining her freelance writing services.You can view more articles and resources from Heather at http://www.abaparenttraining.com and email her at [emailprotected] can also advertise your autism services at one of Heather's websites: http://www.LocalAutismServices.com.Heather is the developer of the "One-Year ABA Parent Training Curriculum."

APA Reference Gilmore, H. (2020). Determinism: What is Determinism from an ABA Perspective? (FK-03). Psych Central. Retrieved on March 15, 2020, from https://pro.psychcentral.com/child-therapist/2020/03/determinism-what-is-determinism-from-an-aba-perspective-fk-03/

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Determinism: What is Determinism from an ABA Perspective? (FK-03) - PsychCentral.com

PUBLISHED: 13:03 13 March 2020 | UPDATED: 13:13 13 March 2020

Gemma Jarvis

Anglia Sunshine Nurseries in Sudbury is celebrating its third successive 'Outstanding' assessment by Ofsted. Picture: ANGLIA SUNSHINE NURSERIES

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Anglia Sunshine Nurseries in Sudbury was praised by the standards body for its 'understanding of children's needs and the close relationships they build with the families'.

The inspection took place in February and the Outstanding rating was applied in all assessment categories - quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management.

Praise was given for 'encouraging the older children to be extremely ambitious learners, developing exceptional imagination and language skills'.

'Children new to the nursery settle very swiftly. This is because staff gain a deep understanding of their needs and build close relationships with their families.'

Ofsted said babies in Anglia Sunshine's care showed 'show extremely high levels of curiosity and perseverance' and 'younger children immerse themselves in a wide range of activities, which encourages early exploration'.

'Children develop a strong sense of right and wrong. They consistently display excellent behaviour due to well-established boundaries and carefully structured

routines,' the report added.

Relationships with parents were described as 'excellent'.

'Parents are very complimentary about the nursery. They stress how confident they feel when leaving their children,' it said.

Staff were praised as well trained and knowledgable in their roles.

The nursery opened in September 2003 and cares for children aged from newborn up to five-years-old. It also has a kidzone room for school children aged between four and 14 years. It was previously assessed in 2014 and 2010.

An Eylog online observation system allows parents to view what their child is up to during the day where they can comment and share their child's achievements at home.

Nursery manager Felicity Rose said: 'I am thrilled and believe that 'Outstanding' reflects the determination and commitment of all of us at Anglia Sunshine and our belief in giving every child the best start in life.'

Nursery owner Jacqui Stoneman added: 'I am so proud of them and the positive influence they have on the next generation.'

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Anglia Sunshine Nursey in Sudbury achieves outstanding Ofsted rating for third time - East Anglian Daily Times

PUBLISHED: 12:19 13 March 2020 | UPDATED: 12:19 13 March 2020

Blenheim Park School

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Blenheim Park Academy based in Sculthorpe, between Fakenham and Docking, was given the rating from Ofsted inspectors when they visited for two days from January 22.

The inspection team noted that behaviour, attitudes, personal development, leadership and management was good but that the quality of education and early years provision requires improvement.

The report, published on February 12, read: 'Since the school became an academy, leaders have taken effective action to improve all aspects of school life. There is now a stable staff team who work closely together to improve pupils' education.

'Leaders have recently undertaken a complete review of the curriculum in all subjects other than English and mathematics. They have gone back to the core of each subject and considered exactly what pupils need to experience to make progress. This is all carefully planned out to a good quality. It has begun to be implemented but is at an early stage. It is too soon to be able to tell if it will be effective.'

At the time of the inspection, the school had 87 pupils registered.

READ MORE: Ofsted inspectors have highlighted dozens of schools across Norfolk which need to make improvements.

Headteacher Nikki Taylor said she was pleased with all of the 'positive steps' taken at Blenheim Park Academy. She added: 'Our next stage is the implementation stage of our curriculum. We have spent a lot of time on it.

'This is a positive move and we've come such a long way - it's an on-going process.'

Ms Taylor said she was pleased with how positive inspectors were about behaviour at the school and she vowed to 'continue the good work'.

The report added: 'Leaders have raised the standard of teaching since the school became an academy.

'The teaching of reading is strong. Pupils' achievement reflects this.'

Staff was also praised for engaging parents and making sure pupils were 'knowledgeable about British values and what they mean in real life'.

Blenheim Park Academy converted to become an academy on March 1, 2017, and has not been previously inspected as an academy. It is part of the Ad Meliora multi-academy trust, which consists of three schools.

When its predecessor school, Blenheim Park Primary School, was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be inadequate overall.

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Blenheim Park Academy rated as requiring improvement by Ofsted inspectors | Fakenham and Wells-next-the-sea News - Fakenham & Wells Times

The April 1968 issue of the American magazine Progressive Architecture and the May 1968 issue of the UK Architectural Design journal both featured a thematic focus on matters regarding education and architecture. The School Scene: Change and More Change was Progressive Architectures cover claim, whereas AD asked: What about Learning? The cover illustrations of both magazines suggested a technological overhaul of the traditional classroom, with images of computers cut and pasted into a print of a Victorian classroom at Progressive Architecture and a small television set worn like a wristwatch at AD.

Instructional and communication technologies ranked prominently in both magazines reports and case studies from the intersecting fields of building and learning, of educational and urban planning, of spatial programs for a rapidly shifting landscape of knowledge production and acquisition. However, the notion of technology that appeared to be most sought after was technology in the sense of environment, consumerism, and mobility.

Cedric Price guest-edited the AD issue on education (and contributed the cover montage). In his editorial essay, Price made clear how he wanted the change in the school scene to be understood. He attacked education, once an institution of emancipatory potential, as having degraded into little more than a method of distorting the individuals mental and behavioral life span to enable him to benefit from existing social and economic patterning.1

In the final paragraphs of his rant, Price admonishes architects to respond appropriately to a situation that requires a radical break with the established forms and structures of learning and education. Acknowledging the fact that learning can no longer be contained in four-wall units and limited to a particular period in an individuals life, Price claimed education needs to be re-thought. This resonsideration was supposed to attend to the conditions of a social and economic reality informed by technological change and marked by the spatial and temporal ubiquity of learning. For Price, whats key is the reformulation of the architects and planners roles, since their ideas of spatial flexibility, for example, dont adequately respond to the particular time management and privacy needs of a contemporary teenage student. Thus, the architects task would be to provide an individually operable space.

Regarding the transformation of the educational realm, the editors of Progressive Architecture put a similar emphasis on the expansion and the urge to change the attitudes of planners and architects. Introducing their thematic focus, they first offer economic and demographic data about the annual $52 billion paid for education by the US government, the almost-seventy million students between the age of 524, and the approximately two million teachers needed to educate them.

The coupling of econometric and demographic data was meant to be indicative of a new role to be played by the educational sector in terms of the political economy at large. The systems of elementary and secondary education, the editors venture, are taking on the attributes and responsibilities of civic leaders, sociological catalysts, and seminal agents for urban rejuvenation, as well as their traditional responsibilities for formal education.2

Like Price, Progressive Architecture asked for a new thinking as well as a redefinition of participation and interdisciplinary cooperation. Rather than programming separate schools in suburban areas, the journals editors argued, the school must be worked into the community fabric, and must become a contributory member of the community, both to help and ameliorate its ills and to enrich it through involvement with its life and culture. Repeatedly stressing the need for involvement was a way of saying that there was an alarming dearth of integration to be addressed by educational planning, or, using a more poignant terminology, that the social and political fact of segregation was educations main object. There is a feeling, the editorial further tries to explain, that education is being asked to purify all our national problems of racial injustice, violence, poverty, and hatred; to act as a sort of filter through which these impurities might be removed in the process of educating our children and involving their elders the process.

In 1968, education was invested with the hope that it could take on a central role in social and economic change, to become the therapeutic medium to cure the nations disease. In the US, the protests and organizing of the civil rights movement and militant black activism made inevitable the acknowledgment of the imminent social and political crisis of the city caused by racialized urban politics, suburbanization, white flight, and so-called ghettoization. Thus, before, during, and after the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the issues of race, class, and urban renewal were granted high priority on the agendas of public authorities and academic research in education, sociology, urban studies, and the like.

Looking for a response to the crisis of the city, education was considered the key remedying force, and with it the places and spaces of learning. If the analysis of neoliberal governmentality often refers to a depoliticizing educationalization of social problems, the governmental turn to education in the 1960s certainly preceded this contemporary tendency.3 The physical, but also the technological and social environment of education became the object of far reaching conceptual and planning activity informed by a reformist social and urban politics aimed at pacifying inner city unrest. At times, it even sought to heal the wounds of anti-black violence inflicted by municipal governments, their housing politics, and misguided educational policies.

AD and Price seemed primarily concerned with the reconfiguration of the spatiality of learning in the interest of individualized and, ultimately, uncommitted spaces of calm and potential self-education. Progressive Architecture was more openly looking for models of civic participation and the socially and economically generative role of education. However, the approaches certainly shared an interest in nonpedagogical, nonadministrative educational programming, as well as in the future roles of architects and planners in it.4

In line with such gestures of radical breaks with notions and structures of education, both magazines featured articles on the 1967 Rice Design Fete, a twelve-day-long workshop or charrette organized at the School of Architecture at Rice University in Houston, Texas.5 The first three previous iterations of the Design Fete had been devoted to community colleges, fall-out shelters and mental health centers. The fourth, 1967 edition it focused on New Schools for New Towns. The outcomes of this particular event are exemplary of a somewhat split consciousness: of self-proclaimed progressive design and educational endeavors that address the demands of social change, while at the same time disavow the political and social conflicts dominating the discussion in that period.

The event was co-sponsored by the Educational Facilities Laboratories, a New York-based consultancy agency on school building and educational economies funded by the Ford Foundation and long-time proponent of modular-prefab open plan architecture and the SCSD (School Construction Systems Development) system of flexible construction.6 The School of Architecture at Rice, headed by William Cannady, invited Charles Colbert, Niklaus Morgenthaler, Cedric Price, Robert Venturi, and Thomas Vreeland, as well as Paul Kennon, a professor at Rice, to team up with students from various universities joining the charrette to develop a project on the basis of different programs drawn up for the workshop by professional educators for new towns and their education systems.

The programmatic brief of the Design Fete as a whole was drafted by Albert Canfield and John Tirrell, two educational consultants who had recently been employed by the Oakland Community College near Detroit.7 Canfield and Tirrell were extensively cited in Progressive Architecture and published their article Goodbye to the Classroom in the May 1968 Architectural Design issue. They advocated the technologically enhanced programming of small learning steps, the constancy of learning as a continuing element in life. They also argued for the maximum utilization of all community facilities as well as of home study through portable packages, thus spreading communication among the community, so that it becomes an integral part of community living and the personal growth of the citizen.8

In their AD article, Canfield and Tirrell were convinced that due to an increasing effectiveness of self-instructional materials, the need for teachers and tutors will decrease.9 Moreover, they proposed a node for cultural/recreational activities in each of the neighborhoods as well as in industrial, business and commercial establishments. For them, education was on the way from the school building and moving into the domestic sphere, the workplace, and new leisure architectures: cultural/recreation centers will enhance and combine many of the cultural/educational/recreation activities formerly associated with separate institutions, such as the sports ground, art gallery, library, museum, elementary and secondary schools, university and factory.10

These attempts to think differently about education sought to overcome its institutional paralysis, the dependence on spatial conditions such as the schoolhouse, and become more geographically dispersed and temporally extended. However, Canfield and Tirrells proposals remained within a planners mindset. And while they were ingrained by a technological optimism that may have been critical of the established forms and designs of schooling, they happily went along with larger economic and urban trends.

As for the selecting the educational requirements of new towns as its theme, the booklet published about the Rice Design Fete claims : A new town presents an unmatched opportunity to explore new educational approaches and new ways of housing education without the constraints of continuity.11 The blank slate approach of unfettered planning and design in brand new urban environments was intended to engender transfers into existing cities. The program had no strings attached, and thus aimed to bolster the creative energy of the participants.

Among the leading assumptions of the Design Fete was the increasing influence of technology on the learning experience, or the issue of instructional media and electronic teaching assistance. Other concerns were the necessity to involve (or intermix) the educational realm and the community, and last but not least, the importance of mobility in contemporary urban reality, or in other words, the need to find ways of making the time spent in trains and automobiles educational.

Visualization of the proposal by the group led by Charles Colbert. Source: New Schools in New Towns. The Future, Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

Elevations and sections of the proposal by the group led by Charles Colbert. Source: New Schools in New Towns. The Future, Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

Typical plans of the proposal by the group led by Charles Colbert. Source: New Schools in New Towns. The Future, Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

Individualized education diagram, from the proposal by the group led by Charles Colbert. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967)

Shoulder carrel prototype, from the proposal by the group led by Charles Colbert. Source: Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

Unsurprisingly, the results of each of the working groups happened to be quite different. Charles Colbert, an architect from New Orleans, and his group proposed educational towers constructed of steel pipe, for the envisioned new town would be developed by a steel company in relation to a new steel mill about thirty miles from Houston and was thought to evolve into a self-contained 150,000-resident satellite city. The Towers school facilities would be available 24 hrs a day, serving students at high-school level and above, including adult education.12

Plans show the proposed school facilities; the floors above these would house corporate offices. Although Canfield and Tirrell, the two educational consultants in charge of the program, were advocating the collapse of boundaries between institutions such as museums, libraries, parks, and the educational activity of the community, Colberts educational towers were considered to be bring corporate offices and schools too closely together. Whats more, even though the concentration of high school-level education in the community center seemed to respond to Canfield and Tirrells notion of the community node, it also wildly contradicted the ideas of decentralized, dispersed education. The Colbert group addressed this in almost satirical fashion, with its prototype of a shoulder carrel: a super-individualized learning device incorporating instructional media of all kinds, from television and tapes to computer connection, two-way radio, telephone, slide projector, and screen.

Model of the proposal by the group led by Paul Colbert. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Diagram of "movement through activities instead of past them," from the proposal by the group led by Paul Colbert. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Diagram of the "Grand Intermix," from the proposal by the group led by Paul Colbert. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Sketch of the computerized carrel cars, from the proposal by the group led by Paul Colbert. Source: New Schools in New Towns. The Future, Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

The individualized space of study has always been a particular task for designers of library and workplace furniture. Around 1967, it was already possible to conceive of a mobile learner interface with limitless access to audiovisual and textual archives, a sturdy precursor of what by has become everyones handheld wireless device. Yet freeing the individual from any larger architectural structure and entitling them to become this architecture resembles the nightmarish opposite of any community-centered notion of involvement via education.

Houston-based architect Paul Kennon came up with an educational plan structurally similar to Colberts proposal, yet different in its architectural references. Rather than designing towers, Kennon was drawing on the horizontal model of the suburban shopping mall. Responding to a brief by Dorothy M. Knoell, a programmer at the State University of New York and author of the 1966 book Toward Educational Opportunity for All, for a new town thirty miles east of Los Angeles, Kennons Educational Concourse was a university campus based on a notion of the university as a generator of community services.13

The multifunctional megastructure of the new town is designed as an urban strip with the educational hub as a kind of central machinery. Computerized Carrel Cars allow for speedy commuting for constant learners. The carrel car is in reality a flexible space, the commentary in Progressive Architecture elaborates, [a space] that can be attached to homes as study rooms, serve as a mobile study, docked at the school or drawn up in a protective semicircle like covered wagons to ward off the arrows of ignorance.14 In diagrams, the Kennon group visualized the intermix and the type of movement that would be an ongoing and total engagement with this educational-consumerist environment.

Mobile teaching unit, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Individual hand-carried unit, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Central control, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Child care center, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Individual study unit, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Drive-in study unit, from the proposal by the group led by Thomas Vreeland. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

The group of Thomas Vreeland, who founded the CASE group in 1964 together with Peter Eisenman, Colin Rowe and others, was advised by educators Cyril Sargent and Judith Ruchkin to come up with a proposal for the subtle, minimally invasive makeover of an existing, multi-ethnic, but deteriorating community adjacent to downtown Houston. The program called for an experimental approach to manipulate urban space but refrain from razing the neighborhoods buildings or other ways of creating a blank slate from which to build anew. Starting from the assumption that all participants are learners, with no age barriers who tend to be dispersed, the rehabilitation of the community in decay was designed to be facilitated by the restructuring of learners time, attention to varied learning rhythms, and the potential displacement of learning facilities, even overnight, if necessary.15 The project was strongly informed by the educators ideas about a linear community school that would be equipped with cybernetic devices to retrieve and feedback on data from an electronic database. The purpose of such a linear school would be to foster development of personal qualities of independence, creativity, imagination as well as sympathy, reliability, and responsibility. In the community school the learner becomes free to search, to investigate.

Vreeland and his group abstained from the kind of architectural design and urban planning approach that Kennon and Colbert had opted for, although they share a certain technological optimism. Vreeland rather went for micro-interventions into the existing environment of the neighborhood and for an inversion of the spatiality of the traditional school model. A Volkswagen bus carries educational content and instructional technology to the learners in the city, rather than transporting the students to far away schools.

Through the image of the Volkswagen bus as mobile educational unit, Vreeland also inserted an, if implicit, commentary on the heated debates around the pros and cons of school busing in relation to segregation. Among the measures proposed at the time to desegregate the system were large, centralized, and integrated school campus structures, so called education parks. Such school centers were to be linked with more distant communities mostly by busing. Reminiscent of key events in the civil rights movement of the 1950s, the controversy around busing garnered considerable attention in the 1960s and 1970s. In the process, the image of the bus and of students being transported from inner cities to new suburban education hubs to benefit from integrated schools developed into an icon of educational politics across racial and political divides.16

For Vreeland, the portability of educational hardware was a key methodology to disseminate the school into the community and facilitate educational activity from the point of view of the learners, their interests and needs. But it wasnt only about turning around common ideas of the student and of schooling, of doing away with compulsory learning, grading, and other forms of educational control. Vreelands project aimed for urban regeneration rather than renewal. Their network approach was meant to be capable of functioning as a major regenerative force in the life of the community, a force capable of effectuating gradual social, economic, and cultural changes. At the same time, their project was expected to be productive in scientific terms. Designed as all-pervasive, the network was to touch the community unobtrusively at as many points as possible It works by feeding information about the community for scientific analysis. It forms a sensitive communications network.17

A typology or taxonomy of educational facilities became a tool to visualize and systematize the projects logic and economy, from the individual hand-carried unit (a battery-powered, transistorized radio receiver) to portable conference rooms, mobile teaching units such as the Volkswagen bus, prefab learning centers of different size and functionality, and the central computer bank, monitoring and programming center. The miniaturizing and modularizing of education by way of technological devices, prefab building systems, portability and mobility of spatial units, and centralized databases was a telling attempt at imagining the new town as an essentially nomadic, DIY trailer park environment, deliberately neglecting the symbolism of institutional representation. Immersed in self-organized, autonomous, interest-driven educational activity, this envisioned community is a piece of systems aesthetics, if not a fantasy of alternative cyberneticism. Although (or because) Vreelands project was the only one in the Fete about a multi-ethnic part of the city, it still transcended all troubling divides of race, class, and gender, generalizing the identity of the learner about everything else.

Kit of parts, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools in New Towns. The Future, Progressive Architecture (April 1968).

(OAS) Open-Air Servicing, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

(OAS) Open-Air Servicing, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

(IESC) Industrial/Educational Showcase, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

(IESC) Industrial/Educational Showcase, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

(RTS) Rapid Transit Servicing, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

(CESC) Commercial/Educational Showcase, from the proposal by the group led by Cedric Price. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Cedric Price had been invited to Houston with the knowledge of his outstanding portfolio of peculiar projects of designs for new types of educational environments. Potteries Thinkbelt, for instance, was a large scale project to convert an existing industrial site and its infrastructure in North Staffordshire into a vast educational network for 20,000 students, who he imagined to be hired as wage earners rather than paying tuition fees or receiving grants. Price brought some elements from Potteries Thinkbelt to the Rice Design Fete, where he developed them further. What Vreeland has called the components of the educational experience, Price named parts. For the project that he proposed on the grounds of John Tirrell and Albert Canfields program, Price also came up with a list or taxonomy, a kit of parts.

Using acronyms and little symbols, the kit of parts contained all sorts of technological devices from telephone headsets, slide and film projectors, and assorted items of outdoor and indoor furniture and architecture, including electronic display panels, a portable canopy, and bleacher seating. In his urban-scale taxonomy, Price listed (TB) The Town Brain: Central production and servicing for Educational Facilities (EF), (IESC) Industrial/Educational Showcase: Displays to explain industry to the public, (AL) Auto Link: Education facilities made available to private cars with radio, two-way telephones, and charts, (RTS) Rapid Transit Servicing: Education facilities in buses, trains, etc., including informational panels, and more.

His project for a Total Learning Environment with a Kit of Parts reveled in the potential of manipulating and modifying the urban environment to generate educational situations and place knowledge hubs (or nodes) at the most unexpected sites. A part of the educational landscape could thus be a wrecked car suspended upside down below an elevated expressway, or a boat mounted on the roof of a strip mall. Public parks were to be turned into educational arenas, stressing the equivalence of sport event and schooling; industrial or infrastructural buildings repurposed as screens on which industry would educate the public about what it does while hidden from view; car interiors or bus seats transformed into multi-media learning carrels.

The new town selected for this project was a residential satellite city of medium density thirty miles southwest of Chicago, located on a major radial freeway with a highly educated population of 200,000a population predominantly professional, semiprofessional, and skilled.18 In the article Price published in the May 1968 issue of Architectural Design, the Rice project and its brief had been replaced, while elements of it remained. Renaming it Atom, he abandoned the idea of the plannable finite town, and declared the concept of settlement built for long-term usage obsolete. Instead, he was convinced of the inevitable fragmentation of infrastructural servicing and increased individual mobility and personal independence, and sought to explore its effects on how urban societies are organized.

Price didnt entirely refrain from designing new architectural spaces, as is demonstrated by the LC or Life Conditioner: a simple, box-like structure to contain maximally flexible learning units and placed alongside the freeway. Price explains the typological background as: Two forms, box and tent. Box contains intensive teaching learning facilities and controlled medium-sized volumes food drink and CESC [Commercial/Educational Show-case]. Tentworkshops, laboratories, experimental buildings, etc. Boxes likely to be less frequent in Phase III because of growth of HSS [Home Study Station], while tents likely to increase.19

These presumably cheap, makeshift, highly flexible, and ephemeral structures were meant to constantly be assembled and disassembled and discarded once they no longer fit into an evolved educational way of thinking. For Price, the built environment was rapidly becoming less and less socially relevant, as it is based on ideas of economic growth unaware of the entropic nature of contemporary societies of communication. Fortunately, Price maintained, it is unlikely that education, now entering a period of mammoth expansion in scope and content, will wait around for such stultifying recognition.

Cedric Proce, Atom project: educational facilities network, 1967. Source: Cedric Price fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montral. CCA.

The Educational Facilities (EF) diagrammed in a 1967 drawing, however, show how much organization and geometric order seemed necessary to form the fragmented and de-differentiated urbanscape of learning. It also provided the kind of intelligibility or readability aspired by the community of planners and educators.

For Price, teaming up with progressive educators such as Canfield and Tirrell had been following Prices prior work from a distance and were about to adapt his notion of thinkbelt for their own planning of community colleges in the Detroit area. Their collaboration in the Fete proved inspiring. [The] value of this programme [referring to Canfield and Tirrells conceptual launchpad] at such a time, Price wrote,

is that it has enabled me to show that the built environment together with its integral artifactual kit of parts can help to increase the rate of fruitful fragmentation of educational servicing However the acceptance of educational servicing as continuous, essential feed to the total lifespan, does demand an acceptance of the fact that education together with other essential services must be made available in means and methods comparable with other forms of invisible servicing.20

This rhetoric of educational spaces and technologies becoming invisible or indistinguishable ran against any notion of architecture as built and a potentially monumental statement. Rather, Prices somewhat passive-aggressive de-centering and devaluating of more traditional ideas of shelter and brick and mortar containers privileges a decidedly environmental approach. His approach suggested a wholesale activation of everything towards a new educational functionality that already constitutes the urban infrastructure, from the micro to the macro level.

Like most of his colleagues, Price didnt speak much about what exactly he thinks could be taught and learned in this fragmented, entropic, splintered environment saturated with educational offers and incentives. The curriculum, it could be argued, yields in the training of a different attitude, an attitude directed towards an arguably post-institutional reality of learning. But this reality remained as patterned, albeit non-differentiated of a life-world as the techno-spatial environment it presupposed.

Diagram of the proposal by the group led by Robert Venturi. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Proposal to use billboards for education by the group led by Robert Venturi. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Town plan of the proposal by the group led by Robert Venturi. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Sketch of learning centers within the Educational-Commercial Strip, from the proposal by the group led by Robert Venturi. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

Sketch of learning centers within the Educational-Commercial Strip, from the proposal by the group led by Robert Venturi. Source: New Schools for New Towns, ed. William Cannady, School of Architecture, Rice University and Educational Facilities Laboratories (Houston, TX: self-published, 1967).

In many respects, interpreting the new town as a space of learning, understanding urban education as educationalizing the urban, and making the presence of the school in the expanded field of the city unavoidable anticipated the proverbial notion of learning from. A year before Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, and their Yale students started research into the cityscape of Las Vegas in the fall of 1968, Venturi developed a project at the Design Fete that displayed a similar interest in the semiotics and semantics of the commercial street and the futility of good design.

Carol Lubin and Ronald W. Haase envisioned a self-contained 150,000-resident new town halfway between Washington DC and Baltimore for the Venturi group, and called for a library-centered educational system. Responding to the brief, the Venturi group equipped neighborhoods of 500 families with twenty-four-hour Learning Resource Centers, one for small children, one for young mothers, and another for retired persons. These center facilities could be enlarged by the use of both mobile visiting units and closed-circuit television. Special plug-in areas for bookmobiles, artmobiles, scientific exhibitions, and healthmobiles to visit and service the neighborhood would be provided.21 Besides the basic Learning Resource Centers, larger centers such as Town Learning Centers, Senior Learning Centers, and major City Learning Centers were to be distributed throughout the new town grid.

The Venturi group also proposed even smaller learning units in the form of Service Stations. The architecture of these and the Town Learning Centers were to be simple, skeletal, and placed on the educational strip so as to be reachable by car and bus. Fully in compliance with the main street model of the common American settlement and the suburban town modeled after it, Venturi conceived an intermix of educational, commercial, and mobility systems, with the educational strip as the generator of the new town. A commercial educational strip arrangement for a new town provides a constantly diverting route for the pedestrian and the motorist. Rather than denying the existence of and the necessity for the freeway and the attendant jumble of buildings and automobiles, [the project] mingles education facilities directly with those for commercealong a town-bisecting freewayand creates a varied smorgasbord of attractions to compete for the attention of the pedestrian and motorist learner.22

Further archival research is necessary to ascertain how the proposals from the New Schools for New Towns Rice Design Fete were received in the respective circles of planners, educators, and architects. However, already in 1967, blending education into the consumerist environment of the capitalist city, embracing the suspiciously commercial as well as the neo-vernacular of the pop age, and suspending any culturally inherited divisions between high and low, learning and working, education and consumerism in favor of a model of the citizen as constant, life-long learner could be seen as an enervating, even obnoxious stance by critics of the culture of capitalist order.

On the other hand, the scandalizing of traditional, and particularly Marxist modes of critique and criticality as performed by Venturi and others could be read as an early expression of post-modernist avant-gardism. It could also be read as a sign of the refusal to be aligned with more openly political movements and organizations, or only an academic, political, administrative and managerial class that was increasingly concerned with issues of racism, segregation, and integration.

In 1967 Alvin Toffler, a journalist about to assume celebrity status for the 1970 futurologist bestseller Future Shock (written together with his partner Heidi Toffler), edited a collection of talks that had been delivered in a 1966 conference titled Schoolhouse in the City. It focused on the perceived urban crisis which was caused by the continuing racializing of space, real estate speculation and the mega-business of renewal that has led to the deterioration and ghettoization of downtown and urban residential areas, and the production of the suburban sprawl for a white population deserting the city. In many respects, the programs and the results of the Rice Design Fete in 1967 were a reaction to the kind of discussion documented in this volume.

Throughout, the texts in Tofflers anthology were driven by the alarming facts and statistics evidencing urban decay and ongoing segregation. The book tried hard to provide analysis as well as educational and design proposals to solve the crisis. The prominent black leader as Bayard Rustin, for instance, addressed the boxed-in feeling, the sense of no place to go, the lack of outlet in the African-American ghetto communities, as well as the reasons why schools have become a primary target of the ghetto activist.23 Unless there is a master plan to cover housing, jobs, and health, Rustin argued, every plan for the schools will fall on its face. No piecemeal strategy can work.24

Accordingly, educator Robert J. Havighurst emphasized how this crisis requires the active participation of schools and making and implementing policy for social urban renewal. This big-city crisis is reflected in feelings of uncertainty and anxiety on the part of parents and citizens.25 Community schools, Havighurst reported, have made attempts to respond to the crisis by involving the various constituencies in decisions about school policy and practice to foster the links to the community.

Education is embodied in built environments and in the various groups and clients it hosts, employs, and trains, from students and parents to teachers, administration, municipal governments, urban developers, architects, and educators. Drawing on education as a palliative, order- and equality-inspiring institution had become a default mode of crisis management on a national and local scale by the 1960s. The programming of space and behavior through architecture, design, and technology was meant to remedy the obvious lack of political tools to organize public debate and negotiationthat is, of democratic governance.

Proposals for large-scale community schools and education parks by Quinlivan Pierik & Krause/Architects; Emil A. Schmidlin, Architects; and Kiff, Voss & Franklin, Architects,commissioned and published by theEducational Facilities Laboratories prior to 1967.

Prior to the publication of the Toffler anthology, the Educational Facilities Laboratories published a small report on the school-city problem, showing a selection of architectural designs for large-scale community schools and education parks.26 These and many more designs produced in this age of rapid educational expansion formed the backdrop of the 1967 Rice Design Fete explorations. It was from there that the architects and their associated teams of educators and designers tried to make sense of the agreed-upon task of educationalizing the city through reprogramming urban space. To involve themselves with the social crisis produced by anti-black urban and educational politics would have been too much of a distraction from their core professional agenda of working the brains of administrations and planning committees. However, it is remarkable how their lack of interest in (or insight into) the stratified and segregated social realities of US cities constituted a common attitude across all projects at the 1967 Rice Design Fete (with the slight exception of the Vreeland groups proposal). As progressive as their designs may have appeared in the eyes of the architectural and educational community and their potential clients, their lack of political traction utterly failed the scale and the urgency of the problems at hand.

The self-critical transgression of traditional architectural languages and its engagement with educational theory and practice at the 1967 Rice Design Fete showed what an assembly of white, male, Western architects was capable of in terms of progressive thinking and doing at the time and in an academic setting. Still, the blind spots of the Design Fetes results are conspicuous, considering the ubiquity of anti-black violence, epistemic and otherwise, in the public sphere and mass media of 1960s America. Some determination must have been required to turn away from these realities, particularly when asked to conceive design solutions for new towns, themselves epitomes of white flight and racial divide.

One may wonder if the task of designing educational facilities muted such concerns. Presumably benevolent to the core, the very envisioning of future learning environments might have lured the participants of the Rice charrette into a fallacious post-urban-crisis, if not post-race state of mind. Why didnt anyone feel the need to refer to the traumatizing experiences and memories of school and academia? Maybe recalling ones own individual suffering in the institutional spaces of education could have instilled some empathy, if not solidarity with those being schooled beyond the color line.

This said, so many of the results from the Design Fete appear utterly contemporary and adventurous compared to the majority of contemporary educational buildings that still have yet to transcend rather traditional conceptions of the spatial conditions of learning. As digital as todays classroom might become, the compulsory presence, often for the entire day, in a built environment known as school, is testament to a key threshold still to be surpassed. The 1967 projects therefore might still prove inspirational, regardless of their blind spots.

This contribution derives from a presentation given at Nottingham Contemporary on November 8, 2019. A video recording of the presentation is available here.

Architectures of Education is a collaboration between Nottingham Contemporary, Kingston University, and e-flux Architecture, and a cross-publication with The Contemporary Journal.

Tom Holert is a researcher, writer, and curator. He is the co-founder of the Harun Farocki Institut in Berlin. Hes currently organising the research and exhibition project Education Shock. Learning, Politics, and Architecture in the 1960s and 1970s, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (forthcoming September 2020).

The rest is here:
Educationalize and Fail - Architecture - e-flux - E-Flux

Friday March 13 2020

Paul Ngunyi holds a postgraduate degree in Industrial and Organisational Psychology. PHOTO | COURTESY

I dropped out in my second year and went out in search of a new path in IT.

I first worked as a trainer on basic computer knowledge and while at it, I learnt more about computers.

I then advanced to system administration, technology consulting, sales and customer care services.

Paul Ngunyi holds a postgraduate degree in Industrial and Organisational Psychology. He is a business, career and personal success coach, and the author of Youth of Honour and The Art of High Performance.

How has your family shaped your life?

I am the firstborn in a family of 13, so I learnt to be responsible and to take up leadership roles at a very young age. By age 10, I already knew how to cook, clean and do other household chores, and I would do them diligently without needing to be asked.

What kinds of people do you coach?

As an industrial psychologist, I focus on career professionals and entrepreneurs who want to improve their lives and their businesses. I also coach individuals who feel stuck in their careers, businesses and relationships. Additionally, I do group coaching using a 10-week programme called Self and Business Transformation, which focuses on fostering success through self-knowledge, and career and business improvement strategies. More than 100 individuals have so far graduated from this programme.

How do you improve your knowledge?

I regularly read books that offer tips on personal and professional development. I also like discussing the contentious issues on these subjects with different people to get their perspectives. I also source for online content on YouTube, as well as professional and business journals that are available online.

What was the most radical decision youve ever made and what did it teach you?

I had to drop out of college due to lack of school fees, but that ended up being a good thing because out of it, I crafted a new career in information technology.

However, to be truly happy, I had to find my passion, and I realised that guiding others and helping them succeed gives me great satisfaction. I use my experience from the corporate world, and my training in psychology to live up to my purpose in life, which is to be a business and personal success coach. I learnt to make lemonades whenever life handed me a lemon instead of complaining, and I also learnt that optimism, excellence and hard work are important ingredients of success.

Is this the career you envisioned during your youth?

I had planned to be far more successful, but I did not know exactly how I was going to achieve that. Growing up, I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but I didnt have anyone to guide me.

I was inclined to science-related courses because I was good in sciences. However, I later found out that I was also very empathetic, and a good listener. I was also good in teaching and debates, so I went ahead and created a career in coaching.

Why did you quit your Bachelors course in Mathematics?

I dropped out in my second year and went out in search of a new path in IT. I first worked as a trainer on basic computer knowledge and while at it, I learnt more about computers.

I then advanced to system administration, technology consulting, sales and customer care services. All this time, I found great fulfilment whenever I trained my students and helped them find technological solutions. My IT career grew and soon, I was working for global IT brands. In 2002, I qualified as Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a highly sought after achievement at that time. I worked for brands such as Hewlett Packard and Lenovo, who enriched my career.

But to become a good success coach, I had to get professional knowledge, so I enrolled for a Masters degree in Industrial Psychology.

Have your parents forgiven you for this?

Yes. They have always known that I am responsible enough to make good decisions, and they are very happy with me. When we were growing up, my family was the poorest in our village. However, the story has since changed. My parents feel very proud when they see me offering guidance to my siblings through coaching and to many other people through my books.

Now that you are 40, which were your most significant milestones?

My coaching and leadership journey started taking shape when I was in secondary school because it is there that I began to understand the world beyond my village. This critical awareness of my surrounding and background grew deeper while I was at the university, after which I went on to record the best years of my life my 30s. In the third decade of my existence, I grew to know myself much better even as I continued working. I became courageous enough to pursue my passion in Psychology. Self-awareness, career growth, establishing a family and personal development made my 30s so fulfilling. I now look forward to even better days ahead.

What are your weaknesses?

I detest operational tasks that are repetitive and which demand keen attention to detail, such as administration. I prefer to just offer solutions. I can also be impatient when progress is slow, and this sometimes makes me come across as demanding and overbearing.

Which chapter of your book would you recommend to young professionals?

Chapter one of The Art of High Performance, which highlights the basic components of success self-knowledge, strategy development, goal setting, all-round development and critical success strategies.

Supporting personal and community development projects. Over the years, I have spent my time and money transforming my rural community by paying school fees for many young people. I also spend a lot on books and enrolling for short courses.

What is the biggest lesson you have learnt?

That it is only by pursuing your passion that you can realise true happiness.

How do you take care of your physical wellness?

I watch what I eat, avoid negative emotions, bad relationships and unhealthy religious practices. I value my family and regularly make efforts to continue growing in my career.

The rest is here:
I was a drop out but Im now loving life! - nation.co.ke

Weve all heard of pet therapy, a.k.a. animal-assisted therapy, a.k.a. people relying on animals to help them recover from or better cope with various health issues ranging from cancer to anxiety (thanks, mayoclinic.org).

So its understandable why people might assume that Tamarack Farm HorsePowerment, with its horse-driven sessions, falls into the same category. Theyd be wrong.

Therapy is more about dealing with the past and learning coping strategies; HorsePowerment basically picks up where therapy leaves off, says owner and founder Carol Allen. Our mission is to supply skills for the future, help people develop their leadership and communication skills through tailored equine assisted learning programs.

Carol Allen, founder of HorsePowerment, poses with Arie and Rollin in front of her classroom. Photography by Sarah Farkas.

Were sitting at a folding table in her classroom, an open red barn on the edge of Tamarack Farm in Coventrys village of Greene. Allen and her husband, Ron, are on brand she in a fuzzy zip-up embellished with wild horse illustrations and he in his workman jeans. (The most country thing about my attire is my sturdy boots; I was warned to wear shoes I wouldnt mind getting dirty.) We also have some company: A sweet cat named Sammy purrs away on my lap and two muzzles poke out from the stable behind me, overseeing our chat.

Allen, a Pennsylvania native who grew up riding horses and later driving and training them, started HorsePowerment last year while getting ready to retire after twenty years in education.

I knew that I wanted to continue helping my kids, my special needs population, during retirement, she explains. Then, one day, I was reading through a horse magazine and there was an article about programs that help humans understand, based on the way they interact with horses, how they can improve their communication skills, team-building skills, leaderships skills, confidence and more.

But whats so great about horses?

Horses are prey animals, so their number one concern is safety, Allen explains. They naturally work best in teams, as a herd, and they react immediately to whats in front of them thats whats kept them alive for millions of years. They can perceive what you are thinking before you even decide to act on it. If youre nervous, not having a good day or not giving the task at hand your undivided attention, theyre going to pick up on that and think that they cant trust you as a leader. They will keep their distance. Through their reactions, horses are able to show us when we are being clear, focused and effective. It gives people the opportunity to experience immediate, direct and unbiased feedback.

Arie and Rollin are the stars of Tamarack Farm HorsePowerment. Photography by Sarah Farkas.

Allen already had the horses: Arie, a twelve-year-old Arab-Paint, and Rollin, a thirteen-year-old Morgan. Regularly calling them her boys, Allen likens them to the odd couple as Rollin is messy and Arie is neat (but neither is immune to a treat or two, I learn when they gobble some up from my palm). She also had more than thirty years of experience with the gentle giants, and had her spacious property, Tamarack Farm, to set up shop.

I said, You know what, Im going to get this training, she recalls. Its amazing how when one door closes, another door opens.

Allen went on to get her certification in Equine Assisted Learning through the Equine Experiential Education Association, or, as she calls it, the E3A. The associations certification course not only taught her how to be a facilitator, but also helped her establish a business model. HorsePowerment is the first and only of its kind in Rhode Island and there are other examples in Utah, Arizona, Vermont and Texas. In addition to keeping her up to date with the EAL world, Allens E3A membership allows her to keep in touch with other such members.

They all have their own piece they focus on, Allen says, Theres one down south that focuses on helping firefighters because first responders have to be able to build as a team and work together in stressful situations.

And though her own emphasis had centered on special needs populations, Allen has started to expand her reach. She recently hosted a group of camp counselors who wanted to better connect with their newer, more diverse group of campers, including those with behavioral challenges and those on the autism spectrum. Allen especially wants to work more with corporate teams interested in professional development.

A group of car salesmen reached out because they kept losing customers after the initial meetings, Allen says. As it turns out, some of the younger employees were finding that they were spending too much time on their phone and their focus and attention werent on the customer, whereas the older sales reps were more personable and had those relationship-building skills. And that all came out with the boys. They werent able to establish the connection in the session. So, we took the observations and applied it to the real world: If youre talking to someone and youre fidgeting or you dont look them in the eye or youre not focused, the person is going to feel like they arent valued or worth your time. Theyre not going to want to work with you, just like the horses didnt.

When I joke that her programs might even be good for couples, Allen agrees wholeheartedly. Yes, it can benefit anyone!

How does it all work? Those interested in booking a HorsePowerment session can sign up directly through their website, horsepowerment.net. From there, depending on the type of program (personal development and wellbeing, corporate leadership or youth development, for example) youre interested in, Allen will ask participants to fill out a simple, confidential questionnaire so she can plan and customize the upcoming session to the individual or groups needs.

She shows me an example of an agenda for a corporate session, which takes up half a workday (Most like to schedule it in the morning, but were flexible, she says). The agenda kicks off with getting to know the horses, and then leads into a sit-down review of what the participants can expect that day. The group will go over a summary of the questionnaire results and everyone involved will come up with one to three goals theyd like to achieve through the program (i.e. learning to delegate or building up confidence).

She also highlights the importance of horse communications and safety (read: how to avoid startling a horse). Then its time for an activity.

One example is Balls in the Air. In this exercise, five people usually participate, with one person hanging back, taking notes, while the other four interact with the horse. Two stand at the front to lead while the other two stand on either side and hold three grapefruit-sized balls (labelled with team goals) each against the horses flanks. Together, the four must successfully navigate a winding obstacle course without dropping any of the balls. The target? Assessing the groups ability to employ creative problem solving, prioritization, teamwork and effective communication.

Afterwards, Allen and the group will go over what happened during the activity, what worked and what didnt, and how the observations and skills can apply to the real world or, more specifically, in the workplace. They then break for refreshments before engaging in another activity with the horses. Finally, the group will do a recap to identify the days takeaways, assess any achievements and finalize an action plan for moving forward.

Sounds way more fun than your typical professional development day sitting in a conference room, right?

Were hoping businesses will turn it into an annual outing, Allen says. We usually have repeat visits with all of our other participants. Once they come out here, they want to come back. Because every time you visit, youre learning something about yourself.

See more here:
HorsePowerment is an Equine-Assisted Learning Program in Coventry - Rhode Island Monthly

Young MUSIAD in partnership with the National Agency, held on 23-28 February in London within the scope of Entrepreneurship Bridge Project 12 young entrepreneurs from Turkey were introduced with investors in London.

PREPARED FOR THE GLOBAL ARENA

The participants, who came together under the umbrella of Erasmus Plus, in cooperation with EU support and MSAD UK branch, had the opportunity to meet foreign investors, explain their initiatives and get to know the entrepreneurship ecosystem in England. Our young entrepreneurs also gained competence in opening up to the global. In the event, which was held with consultations on the startup development program, entrepreneurs were brought together with important institutions that would open the horizon and get support. Entrepreneurs had the opportunity to present one-to-one interviews and presentations to angel investors, accelerators and start-up consultants.

WILL INCREASE TURKEY'S PRESTIGE of R & D -In

MSAD President Abdurrahman Kaan stated that young entrepreneurs will be very productive in order to improve their horizons and gain a vision for the future by participating in such events abroad. Pointing out that young people should follow the trends in the world closely and take action by generating new ideas, Kaan said, Our country needs entrepreneurs, not imitators, but role models. In this regard, we think that the fact that our young entrepreneurs especially focus on innovation-R&D, start-up and technology issues will play an important role both in advancing their personal careers and in making our state a respected and prestigious country in the international arena. found the assessment.

SUPPORT FOR YOUTH IS NOT ENOUGH

ECONOMY

MUSIAD denies false allegations

Go here to see the original:
Young MUSIAD members met with investors - Crypto Dictation

Kyle Bardouche at Jack Henry stockist Lone Flag in Encinitas, CA

We are now judged in a different criteria for credibility, professionalism, creativity, confidence and approachability. In a word, impressing is out, empowerment and flexibility are in. Men and grooming are having a meeting and grooming seems to be schooling us - and for good reason.

As the new corporate America seems to evolve, the hard and fast rules that once governed the traditional nine-to-five workplace are bending and with them the ways American men dress and groom themselves for business. For generations, the attire and grooming practices were unchanged. The majority of American men and women were wearing dark suits or serious apparel in conservative colors and style as well as practical and standard grooming practices. As a matter of fact, I recall my older brother and I trying on my fathers old spice and others standard brands at that time.

Organized culture and work attire have definitely changed and our society likes the change. Nowadays, corporations are being reengineered so they are flexible and adaptable, ready to take on the changes that are inevitable.

The new business environment calls for different values, behaviors. dress and grooming. Fresh choices, creativity and relaxed clothing are the new rules the modern office. With that comes flexible time, job sharing, summer hours and home offices. This switch in business development has created a new sense of style and grooming for American men where there will be no turning back. Alas, the brand Jack Henry has developed a grooming brand to adhere the rapidly transitioning market.

Clay Pomade and the Deodorant are a favorite of Kevin Love ( NBA Cleveland Cavaliers)

It started with one guy: Jack Henry.At the time he had just turned two and his hair was getting uncontrollable. His parents Kyle and Erin tried to reel it in style it a little.At the time, Erin asked Kyle if she could use his hair product and Kyle tossed her his pomade. She caught it, turned it over and said, Have you ever looked at whats in here? Do you even know what half these ingredients are? Im not putting this on our son.As it turned out, that product contained 33 ingredients, 98% of which were synthetics. Erin went on a mission to find a cleaner alternative - a hair product made with natural ingredients. She was unable to find what she was searching for henceforth, she decided to make her own. After a bit of research, she created the first batch of OG Pomaderight on their stovetop at home.

Jack Henry Deodorant

Kyle tested it on his hair and quickly realized it felt right. Not only was it clean and minimal, but the performance was great. It was everything hed been looking for himself: zero shine, zero grease, zero crunch. He could run his hands through his hair and it felt like nothing was in thereyet he could still restyle all day, even in moisture and humidity.

After that first batch, they realized they were onto something. Their aim was to build a brand to give guys access to clean, natural body care products. Additionally, they aimed to educate men on what was in the products they were using. So they started a brand: Jack Henry.

Clean and minimal packaging

The current collection consists of clean and minimal hair, skin and body products. They never use any synthetics or questionable toxins. The brand launched face oils in early 2019, as there was a need when it came to simple skincare for guys. they also just released their fully natural and cleanDeodorant this past December.

Jack Henry Clay Pomade is their best seller

TheJack Henry Deodorantquickly became the second best seller. They went through 10+ iterations over eight months of development. It was by far the most complex product they formulated because a deodorant doesnt just need to smell good, but it really has to perform. They set out to develop something fresh, earthy, and uplifting, and it had to be on brand.

I recently has the privilege of speaking with KyleBardouche,Founder of Jack Henrywhat men are seeking in deodorant, how everything the brand makes comes from a personal need and a desire to create the products they wished existed in the market and why all of the products are handcrafted by the team in small batches in Southern California- and why this gives the brand the most control over the process and quality at every step!

Kyle described Jack Henry as an extension of himself by living a conscious lifestyle. Not only about ... [+] what he eats, but what he and his family put on their bodies

Joseph DeAcetis: Talk to Forbes about the history, and development of your brand?

Kyle Bardouche: I started Jack Henry in 2017 after realizing how many questionable ingredients were in the hair product I was using at the time. When I went on a mission to find a cleaner alternative, I discovered that there was nothing out there for guys, although there were some really good options for women. I was alarmed that the hair product I was using then, which came in this crisp white container and was marketed as natural was far from it. So we created our Clay Pomade which is our best seller and only contains four total ingredients. It is simple yet sophisticated. After that, we realized pomade was just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many other body care products that had all these questionable ingredients, so we launched our skincare line in 2018 and a year later in 2019, we released our Deodorant stick, which has been a huge seller and is a favorite of NBA Star Kevin Love.Our Philosophy is simple, we believe in crafting the most effective, clean, and pure products. We believe in simple, purposeful ingredients that are sourced from the finest locations. We believe in inspiring and educating. We also believe it goes beyond the actual product. It's about the design, the craft, the way it's made, the way you use it, and most importantly, the way it makes you feel.As for sustainability, our products come in fully recyclable glass containers. All of our ingredients are certified organic and/or wild-crafted, and we dont skimp on the quality. All of our products and formulations are developed and produced in-house by our team. We don't use any synthetics or toxins. I think you may also find Who is Jack Henry interesting, as essentially its you, its me, its anyone who wants to live a more conscious, healthy lifestyle.Personally, Ive been obsessed with hair since I was two years old. Id use my moms hair spray and spike my hair. In middle school, I was all about LA Looks blue hair gel that left your hair looking wet and stiff as a board. After changing my eating habits and really starting to take care of my mind and body in my mid-20s, which is a constantly evolving process, it took me about five more years to develop an awareness of what I was putting on my body. Its not something that happens overnight. I really just try to learn everyday, make better decisions, and lead by example for my kids.Ive always had a rebellious side. I hated school, and I always thought there were other ways of doing things, which I now see was the start of what some might call an entrepreneurial mindset. My educational background is in computer technologies. I thought I wanted to do something in the tech space, but my true calling was really using technology to communicate, build and distribute products that Im super passionate about. I taught myself marketing and business skills by following mentors, reading books, learning from experience, and connecting with others in the space. My background and passions finally came together in about 2013, but before that, I never really knew you could start your own business or work for yourself or that connecting with people was actually called marketing. Understand people and youll understand business.Its also really important to connect with people who share the same beliefs and passions as you. No one can do everything on their own, and thats one of the biggest things Ive learned along this journey. Its all about the people you surround yourself with, the team you build, delegating responsibilities, and being open to growth-both personally and professionally.

Jack Henry uses zero synthetics and zero toxins

Joseph DeAcetis: In your words, what is your competitive advantage in development and specialized product?

Kyle Bardouche: The beauty & grooming industry is built on beautiful people and elegant packaging; very rarely is it focused on the actual product or formula itself. I was surprised that most products on the market arent even the original formulation of the brand selling them. Most brands will go to a manufacturer and purchase a formula that the manufacturer uses for other brands and will just change something as simple as the scent.All of our products are not only formulated and developed in-house, but they are also tested on us, our friends, family, and professional athletes. We have a rule that we wont use any synthetics or potential toxins. It has to come from the earth or we dont use it. Our ingredients are organic or wild crafted and sourced from small family farms across the globe - organic lavender oil from France, organic coconut oil from the Philippines, Hinoki oil directly from Japan. Everything we make comes from a personal need and a desire to create the products we wished existed in the market. We are focused on creating products that not only help you look better, but also feel better.In short, we flipped things around and started with fewer, but more effective ingredients. Additionally, we lead with transparency and education, use minimal black and white packaging to keep the focus on the products purpose and ingredients, and allow the marketing flow naturally from that. We didnt want to rely on flashiness, but rather we just wanted to make natural stuff that actually worked.

Joseph DeAcetis: In your words, what are men seeking today in deodorant?

Kyle Bardouche: I think what men look for in deodorant is simple it has to perform. Nobody wants to worry about carrying around their deodorant and reapplying during the day. At the same time, I think men are becoming more conscience about not only what they're eating, but also what theyre putting on their bodies. They dont want to sacrifice performance or health. Its really about living a fully conscious lifestyle.

Sam Way & Lewis Jamison shot by Lauren Luxenberg

Joseph DeAcetis: Talk to Forbes in detail about the current product offerings and why it is important for consumers to be aware of this brand?

Kyle Bardouche: While each Jack Henry product was created from a personal need, they represent really universal needs.Most of us didnt know that we should be looking at the ingredients in our deodorant or pomade at all, much less that the ingredients we put on our body could be drying and irritating or even have serious health effects. Our skin is our largest organ, so what we apply to it every day isnt inconsequential.At the same time, we all want to look and feel our best, so its not enough that a product is just natural, it also has to perform and be simple to use. When we searched for products that checked those boxes, we came up empty-handed. We believe no one should have to choose between performance and health, and thats the philosophy behind everything we make.

All products were developed from a need of not being able to find anything that existed in the ... [+] market

Joseph DeAcetis: What are your day-to-day responsibilities?

Kyle Bardouche: Running a startup, you have to be super flexible and willing to help wherever you can. My main role is staying focused on the growth of the brand and making sure we are delivering exceptional products. I still do day-to-day tasks that other founders may not do. Were a culture and customer-focused brand, so its very important to stay in constant conversation with customers. I run our social media, post every day, and respond to comments and DMs. I direct and oversee all our content, from working with our photographers, designers, creators, athlete and partner relationships to managing Instagram and overseeing paid ads, all the way to keeping our website operational and up-to-date. That honestly takes up a lot of my time.Additionally, I formulate all our products, so Im always playing with ingredients, researching ideas, and dreaming up how we can improve on whats already out there. However, every day looks different, sometimes I'm helping pack orders in the morning and then will have a phone call with a retailer such as Nordstrom in the afternoon. Were still a lean, small team of seven phenomenal people so I help to make sure they have what they need to be successful with their roles.

Joseph DeAcetis: Where is the product made and why?

Kyle Bardouche: All our products are handcrafted by our team in small batches in Southern California. This gives us the most control over the process and quality at every step.

Jack Henry street campaign 2020

Joseph DeAcetis: You have the floor: Talk to my viewers about why they should try this product now ?

Kyle Bardouche: We began developing our new Deodorant in April 2019. We first focused on developing a product that outperformed everything else, so thats where the beeswax, coconut oil, baking soda and bentonite clay come in. The mix of beeswax and these botanicals help absorb your sweat and eliminate any odor.Next, we focused on the scent. We wanted the scent to be uplifting and relaxing at the same time, much like walking through a Japanese forest. Scent or fragrance are very delicate materials, especially if youre working with pure essential oils. It needed to be subtle yet sophisticated. We started with our base note of Hinoki oil, which is sustainably grown in Japan and comes from the Japanese Cypress tree. Hinoki oil has calming and relaxing properties and can be described in one word as clean. Next is our organic Juniper oil, which is harvested in Bulgaria from the Juniper Berry and has a fine, fresh, woody-green aroma. Next we take a more widely known oil - organic Eucalyptus oil that we source directly from Portugal, which gives the deodorant a fresh, uplifting and invigorating note.In combination, these seven total ingredients work with your body to absorb sweat and odor to help you smell great all day long. Based on our testing, it lasts 48-hours with typical usage so you can skip the shower if you need to.To us, a product isnt ready until weve stripped away anything unnecessary. The ultimate question when it comes to development is How can we create a product that performs with the least amount of ingredients? Theres a quote we live by: Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away, by the French poet Antoine de Saint-Exupry.

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Meet Jack Henry: A Grooming Brand For Men That Refuses To Use Any Synthetics Or Questionable Toxins - Forbes