Self Reflection Journal PDF 2014-2025 Form

Here we go again. Asking a question about narcissist as if they self reflect and have a conscience. Projecting normality on an evil entity.To ask such a question shows me that you do not understand what a narcissist is. Or you believe that narcissist are broken little children who need love and understanding . And that we should love them more and understand their pain. That they are the true victims. Reality check!! They are not victims, they are victimizers! And the only thing they are is pathetic. So wake up!!They do not have a conscience. I don't care what anyone says. They do not! They do not self reflect. They do not feel guilt. They do not feel remorse. And they most certainly do not ever contemplate the consequences of their actions.They're not broken little children trying to fill some empty void . They're not to be pitied. They cannot be fixed or cured; any more than you can teach a scorpion not to sting, or make a fish not want to swim. They simply live in the moment. They are self-destructive in nature. Caring only about satisfying their own self interests. The tactics they use; the abuse, the manipulations, the lies, are all just a means to an end. All tools used to get what they want.You are dealing with a person that has no empathy, no compassion, no ability to love, no ability to reflect, no ability to develop or maintain any emotional relationship with anyone, and no moral compass whatsoever. They can mimic these emotions, but it's only a manipulation.Consequences are of little or no importance to them. They will discard anyone at a moment's notice. They will simply move on to someone else. And they most certainly do not worry about anything.They don't lose sleep, they don't have anxiety, and they most certainly do not care about how their actions affect others.People want to project normal on everything. They want to believe that everyone is good and that if somebody does bad things they must be psychologically impaired or broken.The average person just can't accept the fact that there are evil people out there who do evil things just because they can and enjoy it. The narcissist is a perfect example of such a creature.Because narcissist use emotion to maintain a hold on their victims, most people refuse to accept the fact that the narcissist never cared, loved, or felt any emotional attachment to them whatsoever. This would force us to realize that we were conned. This would force us to realize that we fell in love with a lie.We didn't fall in love with the person, we fell in love with the illusion. They mirrored everything we wanted in regards to love from another person. They put on their masks and played the character that would best suit the situation. They never showed us what they were, they only showed us what we wanted to see.The searching for answers, the confusion, and the constant search for truth, and the relentless search for closure by the victim, is the ending result to our inability to face the reality of what they did.We willingly gave them the script to have emotional control over us. Like any good predator , they studied their prey. They observed our strengths and our weaknesses. They listened to us as we talked about our hopes and dreams. As we told them about everything that scares us. That makes us happy. Things that we hold dear. Things that were important to us. And they used that knowledge to be the perfect person at the beginning.We all fell for it. We drink the Kool-Aid. And we wanted more. We kept thinking we could get back there. We kept thinking if only we tried harder they would love us again as they did in the beginning. If only….. If only….You were never in a relationship. Not in the conventional manner. You were in a parasitic relationship. one in which one organism, the parasite, lives off of another organism, the host, harming it and possibly causing death.That person you fell in love with, never existed. That was the character they created to lure you in. To fully understand this I suggest you watch Primal Fear. The ending scene with Richard Gere and Edward Norton is one of the most profound scenes of understanding the true nature of manipulation. Edward Norton plays the character who has a split personality . Aaron is the kind sweet loving gentle boy . Roy , is the evil narcissistic devil . At the end of the movie Richard Gere's character , the lawyer , realizes the entire thing was an act to be found not guilty . He looks towards Edward Norton and says “ so there never was a Roy!” and I'm paraphrasing , to which Edward Norton replies “ you still don't get it , there was never an Aaron !”You see, there was never good in him. He created Aaron to lure Richard Gere into caring about him and making him believe that he was broken and incapable of the horrific acts that he was charged with. It is an amazing movie, but if you just Google ending scene to Primal fear, and just watch that clip, you will truly understand what I'm trying to say.There never was anything good about your narcissist. It was an aberration that they created to lure you in. Stop trying to normalize the behavior of a narcissist. You can't. Pop psychologist today want you to believe their victims and should be pitied. That they're broken little children trying to fill some void. When in actuality research shows just the opposite. The majority of people who suffer childhood trauma actually develop more empathy than most people. Look it up!The very foundation of the narcissist Behavior is that they do not fear or contemplate consequences. When you remove all that makes us human; love, compassion, understanding, emotional attachment, empathy, self-reflection, selflessness, graciousness, the narcissist is all that is left.Have you ever wondered why after researching narcissistic traits and behaviors you start to find that their actions are incredibly predictable? That's because these are instincts to them. Some narcissists are smarter than others and they're better at manipulating people. But their tactics are all the same. There's not a narcissistic School that they go to to learn these manipulative behaviors.Society created the terms so we can understand and recognize them. Terms such as: Gaslighting, triangulation, projection, passive aggressiveness, hoovering, and others. Narcissists have been doing these things long before science gave them a name.Society has conditioned us from the very beginning to ignore evil Behavior. They want us to rationalize and pity the abuser. They want us to see them as the victim.A bully is just a person that is looking for love and probably has problems at home. They're just acting out. That is total b*******!! A bully is a bully because they can. As long as they get away with it they will continue to do it. They enjoy hurting people. And when you stand up to a bully and they leave you alone; it's not because they learned some valuable lessons and have seen light, it's because they know you're not going to take it anymore. They are still going to find another victim.It's the same with a narcissist. You can unmask the narcissist. You can talk to them till you're blue in the face and tell them how much they hurt you. You can try to reason with them and explain to them how much you love them and how much their actions have affected you. It won't change anything.They do not care what you are saying. They will tell you they understand and they're sorry. They will tell you anything that you want to hear if they feel you'll stay and let them continue to abuse you. But you did not get through to them. You did not make them self reflect. You did not make then contemplate their actions. All you really did was try to expose them and make them feel shame. And you're going to pay for that if you stick around.That is why the only way to break this cycle of chaos and abuse is to just leave. Cut your losses. No contact in any form. Stop answering the phone . Block them on social media . Don't answer texts or emails . Stop thinking about what they're doing or who they're with . Stop believing you ever had a chance. Stop trying to get closure. You're never going to get it. Stop trying to get answers. You're never going to accept the truth as long as you keep believing the myth that there's hope. They're never going to hear you. They are never going to care about anything they did to you. Stop thinking you had anything special because you didn't. And for the love of God, stop thinking it was you. You didn't do anything wrong. Accept the fact that you were deceived, tricked, and played.And even if you leave, and do all the things to remove them from your life, they're still not going to look at that as a consequence. They will move on. They will play the victim. And their life will continue to go on as it always has. But you will be free. And do not think for one moment that you will be able to warn their next victim. Would you have listened?Life is too short. Stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You can't win. Throw the damn game away. Use the knowledge and the wisdom that you have gained from this experience to never repeat the same mistakes again. Because once you look behind the curtain; you see that the “Great Oz” was only a man deceiving everyone, you really do start to see things more clearly.

Before we go into the details on how European and East Asian calligraphy differ, we should note one major difference in them: in Europe, calligraphy is traditionally considered a means, while in East Asia, it’s an art. Calligraphy in the West was mostly used to write beautiful letters, invitations, books, but in the East, it was deemed to have value in itself. People used to give a page of calligraphy of famous calligraphy artists as valued gifts and presents.So what’s one aspect of East Asian calligraphy that’s not often seen in European calligraphy?Empty Space.European calligraphy also has a concept of empty space called ‘negative space’, but this mainly refers to the space around the letters. On the other hand, East Asian calligraphy actually prizes the use of empty space, referring to ‘the beauty of emptiness’ (여백의 미).*Korean*Japanese*ChineseWhat it aims is for viewers to use their creativity to fill the blank space on their own, while concentrating back onto the focus. It encourages viewers to look into the nothingness and contemplate on their own thoughts.At the same time, it seems to give a sense of conservative abstinence. Some might look at it and see the drawing as too stifling, too boring, and too dull, but this was the kind of conservatism prized by a lot of East Asian calligraphers. Note how all three have plenty of unused parts of the paper, and mainly stick to black and white. Although use of colour isn’t uncommon, it’s often used sparingly so that the colours don’t take away from the quiet self-restraint of the calligraphy.Another thing to be noted is that East Asian calligraphy was more apt to draw pictures to balance out the letters. Note the picture of the Korean calligraphy below, which was drawn by my Grand-aunt.*Korean*Japanese*ChineseNote again the plentiful use of empty space and the muted colours. While the picture is used, in the end, the picture’s role is to enhance the writing, often a poem or short phrase, instead of the other way around.The drawings are mostly those of nature. Bamboo, Grass, Birds, Flowers, Water are common themes, as well as simplified forms of people.This highly contrasts with European calligraphy, which seems a bit more bold and colourful.Although pictures are used in some cases, the pictures serve as a separate art in itself than an extension of the calligraphy as it is in the case of East Asian calligraphy. Often, the pictures draw more attention than the letters themselves and are thus bold and forward.I find this highly interesting because the difference in calligraphy seems to reflect on the difference in culture - the more reserved, self-reflective East Asian culture and the bolder, individualistic European culture.

A couple of years ago I was working as freelancer when I got a call from a start-up after he found my number on LinkedIn. He started with his introduction as following: "I'm Mr.X and I'm the founder of XY company and we're looking for a resource in XYXY domain and we found your profile in Linkedin.. blah..blah".He also said, "We're trying to get in touch with you in linkedin for the past couple of weeks. Since you did't responded, we thought why don't we call you!". I'm awestruck since it's been ages I've logged into linkedin and the last time I logged in was the week after I've created linkedin account. Then I was like, "Oh Ok. I was busy for the past couple of weeks so I didn't check my linkedin". Until that day I never really knew the purpose of linkedin.He then asked me about my portfolio and skills and what I was doing and regular interview stuffs. He was really good at communication and his accent seems like american. But I spoke typical south Indian accent which for me looks like american but for the people in the other end feel like protagonist of Quick Gun murugan(Mind it!). So most of the time he was like, "Sorry can you come again? I can't get you!"At some point I really felt very uncomfortable and asked him, "Do you know Tamil?" and he hesitantly said "Yes!". Then I didn't care what he thinks and started to converse in Tamil. I was honest about what I do and what I can offer and also said I'm not interested in any full time employment. He said that he wants the same and he wants me to work for him on a contract basis for 3 months.I said, "Yeah sure. Why not. But I will work only from my home and I cannot travel back to your office in Chennai". I know what you think. My confidence at that time is sky-rocketing because I was really growing fast as a freelancer which boosts my ego further more. So I spoke my mind and didn't care to put a filter in my mind whether I spoke right or wrong.He is fine with it at that time and after a week he called me again and offered me 35% extra from my proposal if I'm willing to work from his office for those 3 months. I'm like this kid who's jumping up and down in excitement.I hid all my excitement and replied him, "I need some time to think" (If I said yes suddenly he'll find I'm really desperate). Then after a day I accepted his proposal and went on to work for him which really went well and he keeps persuaded me to join for full time.But this time I don't want to do the same mistake which I did few years back. So I said no since I can't stay away from my family, friends, mom's food and watching Kumkumbhagya with my sister. But they offered me another deal which I can't refuse i.e., "I can work from home and I can travel to office any time whenever I feel like!". This time I never said I need time to think. I desperately said YES! YES! YES!

You should not lie in the self-appraisal form. Professors generally do not ask anything from the self appraisal form. But if they find out some extraordinary stuffs in your form, they may ask you about those topics. And if you do not know those topics properly, you will have higher chance of NOT getting selected for the fellowship. So, DO NOT write anything that you are not sure about.If I remember properly, in the form they ask, “What is your favorite subject?” and I mentioned Biology there. Head of the interview panel saw that and asked me about my favorite field of biology. When I told genetics, two professors started asking question from genetics and did not ask anything from any other fields at all (except exactly 2 chemistry questions as I mentioned chemistry as my 2nd favorite subject). But they did not check other answers in self-appraisal form (at least in my presence).Do mention about science camps if you have attended any. Again, do not lie.All the best for interview round. :)

Permit me to answer this question using a slight detour.Have you noticed that talking to a narcissist is a pain?If you answered ‘yes’, my next question isWhy is it a pain?In my own experience, it’s because they never listen, never pay attention, and after you’ve finished describing your situation, you always get a blank, non-response that silently screams ‘so what?’. Basically, after you finished telling them the story, you get no reply, no conversation, nada. That’s it. Topic over. You start the topic by putting effort in through words and enthusiasm, they quickly finished it for you with silent withholding (flavored with some covert sullenness).Throughout all that time when you put in your words and enthusiasm, they were just quietly waiting for you to finish talking so that you’d finally shut up. You were never going to get reciprocation from them. They were never going to give you back 1% of what you put in. And they have no conscience pangs about their conduct.If you overlook this and start the next topic in an attempt to give them another, perhaps more exciting topic to deal with, the same thing will also happen to it. Dead in the water. Talking to the narcissist when they are like this feels like being micro-discarded many times during the conversation. It hurts.Why do they do this?It’s because they never want to give or give back. They never want to give you any emotional blessings. Emotional blessings in the form of attention, true listening, taking an interest in your issue or story, reciprocation, giving authentic feedback or responses, being moved by your story, reflecting reality back to you to keep you sane (in the form of an earnest reaction to the story). Loving you. They don’t do the loving you during conversation thing.Narcissists don’t understand that conversations need love. That conversations need two people who love each other. Not romantic love, but neighborly love. As in, I love it that you are talking to me, and I will endeavor to make your time worthwhile.Then what is the narcissist truly doing while conversing?ME! me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me meThere are two ways to express ‘me’. One is to refuse to yield air time, talking about themselves non-stop, switching the topic of every conversation back to themselves or their pet topics. That’s a well known red flag.But there is another, more covert way to play the ‘me’ game, this one is more underhanded and passive aggressive. It is to ‘give you air time’. Notice the open inverted commas. They pretend to give you air time by sitting down quietly and being in excruciating pain while they ‘let’ you talk, trying their best to survive you getting air time, and then, when it’s over, they secretly breathe a sigh of relief, and refuse to let your topic survive any longer, so that you will not be getting any air time extension through topic response. So they make sure your topic is dead as soon as you finish talking. It’s a less well known red flag, but a much more useful one in my opinion, because this one is very common, very insidious, and oft overlooked.So that narcissist having nothing to say in response to your topic, all your enthusiasm, all your words, all your excitement and exposition, is not just deliberate, it is calculated to kill your topic (and inadvertedly your soul, your enthusiasm, your joie de vivre) . Because hearing you talk makes them sick of you, they wished you’d shut up sooner. And since you won’t they needed to take matters into their own hands to kill your topic (and your stupid enthusiasm). They hate the fact that you are talking. Because nothing you said contains any ‘me’ for them.This means narcissists are allergic to any topic that is not about them or their pet interests. That means asymtotically 100% of any topic any genuine, authentic person would bring up. The only people who can escape this fate are either fresh supply, or sycophantic flying monkeys who only tell the narcissist what the narcissist wants to hear.Narcissists don’t want to talk about anything that is not about ME or MY PET INTERESTS.Back to the questionWhy does a narcissist get bored so fast?Because you don’t know how to talk to a narcissist. You didn’t know that you cannot talk to them about almost any topic under the sun because those topics naturally do not contain any ME for the narcissist, there is nothing in it for them to make them want to pay any interest in it. And, you don’t naturally seek to only tell them what they want to hear because you are too genuine and authentic, and you expected better of the narcissist, a bad mistake. You had no idea that they were such a petty, shallow, short circuited, troll hiding under the bridge and shunning everything else unrelated to them. To expect better of a narcissist is to seek disappointment, they cannot be better, when being their true self, they can only be sub-par. Knowing this makes it easier to cope with them.Let me also explain the short-circuited part better (thanks Bassel Chibani). When a person is short-circuited, they refuse to think deeply. They refuse to put in mental and emotional energy into topics to follow their logical and emotional progression into deeper and further areas to yield exciting new insights. This leads to a disinterested know it all mentality that is simultaneously very shallow and conceited, and actually knows nothing. A faux-sophistication, born of subtle self-exaltation and the dismissiveness that inevitably results.To illustrate, if all humans were short-circuited, after discovering fire, we’d think we knew it all and would never progress to eventually invent the internal combustion engine. Or, after mapping the entirety of Europe, we’d never wonder and wander any further and subsequently never discover the Americas or Australia. Chemistry would stay stuck in the 19th century and we’d never invent Nylon or Graphene or the Lithium battery chemistries if all chemists suddenly suffered from this affliction. This is the hazard of the affliction of being short-circuited. It’s the conceit of know it all plus the reality of knowing nothing simultaneously combined.Now,taking it beyond just the conversational realm, narcissists get bored so fast because everything has to be about them or their pet interests. Anything that is not, is naturally boring to them. This means pretty much everything in the world, almost all the topics of humanity, all the current affairs, all the events in foreign countries, all the histories, all of everyone else’s topics, bore them. You cannot imagine what would bore them. Actually, you can now, and the answer is, everything else but themselves and their pet interests.Narcissists cannot step outside of their own skin, empathize, get curious, stop being themselves for just one second, and imagine with wonder.Narcissists lack wonder.Because wonder is a form of love.And narcissists cannot love.So narcissists cannot wonder.Because to wonder, you have to drop yourself, and your own ego for just one second for the sake of loving the unknown. Which makes wonder a derivative of empathy, which itself is a derivative of love.Narcissists cannot love.Therefore they cannot empathize.Therefore they cannot wonder.And because they cannot wonder, they cannot feel the tingle of being alive.Which makes them bored.Their lives are filled with only four thingsmeconceit related me fantasiesboredomirritation, frustration, annoyance, anger, rage, hatred, furyWhy does a narcissist get bored so fast?Because they constantly feel dead inside. That’s what the incapability of feeling love feels like. This is the price they pay for loving no one and loving nothing.That hurtful non-empathy they inflict onto others when others are in pain also rebounds back on the narcissist. And boredom, or grey death is how it looks like when it happens.This pathological non-empathy is bad for both the victims of narcissists and the narcissist themselves.

Oh, dear sweet and fluffy Lord, yes. In every way imaginable. Our current grading system does not even remotely reflect what educational research shows to be best development practice.I’m basing this off the typical A-F grading scale where an F is 59% and below, with increasing letter grades every ten percent afterwards. (D = 60–69%, C = 70–79%, etc.)The standard American grading system does not articulate to students their actual level of mastery over the material and application of skills.Think back to your youth for a moment, and about an assignment you received a letter grade for that you actually remember.What does that letter grade mean?I’m dead serious.What does it mean? How does it inform the student about what they have accomplished and at what level they have accomplished it?Above average? What is the average? How was the average calculated?For a math test, this might be straightforward, but what about more qualitative-based assessments in fields like language arts? How do you reduce creative writing to a formulaic assessment?A “B+” is an utterly meaningless piece of information to a student, especially when it comes to mastery of the content and skills. What does a B+ tell a student about how to improve?Now, a teacher could add some comments to that B+ about what the student could do better next time, maybe even offer some concrete strategy suggestions for improvement. But it still doesn’t address the fundamental problem: what does proficiency look like?The standard American grading system sets a bar of passage that is exceptionally lower than what we require for proficiency.In the typical American A-F grading scale, a “D” is considered a below average, yet passing score.Why?Setting aside the whole issue of how 75% mastery constitutes average in the first place, why would we settle for acceptable proficiency being 60%?And 60% of what, precisely?This was one of the realizations I had in my first year of teaching. I had students who were doing the absolute bare minimum to pass, but were not learning key, critical concepts and skills. They had a 60% aggregate, and that was good enough for them.When I tried to bring this to the attention of the principal, he was initially on board with my revised “required proficiencies” policy, where I required students to achieve at least a score of proficient on assignments that showed me whether they’d met the standards or not. Initially, that was everything, but the principal negotiated down to 2–3 key critical assignments per quarter.And then two varsity baseball players didn’t meet proficiency on required quarter-end projects.I gave them incompletes and time to fix their assignments.Their projects were around C+ level, and their overall grades were B-ish. But, they hadn’t taken the assignment entirely seriously and had not bothered to include one of the required aspects of the project. I assume they did the point calculation and realized that they’d have enough of an aggregate score to pass, proficiency on standards be damned.I held my ground.Within 15 minutes of my submitting the quarterly grades, the principal walked into my room and told me I had to change it. I explained the policy we’d agreed to, and showed him how the students hadn’t met it. He told me to either change the grade to the average of what they’d earned out of total points for the quarter or he’d hold me insubordinate and fire me.Those two students never did show me basic proficiency of two key standards that I knew they would need in their next year’s courses, to say nothing of the state test that I would be held to account for the following fall.That’s right.I have to get the students to about the equivalent of a B on the state test. But the students only have to have a D to pass my class. I cannot retain them and make sure they learn key skills if they are between those two scores, but I get punished if they don’t.The current grading system doesn’t motivate students.Even the go-getters are not motivated by the current grading system.I had some students that were A students and would freak out getting a 98% because that could put their valedictorian battle in jeopardy.But the level of proficiency was not the motivator.If they scored high enough, they never bothered to look at my feedback. They would scan the document or rubric, make sure they got the right number, and recycle it. I watched them, frustrated and irritated, chucking at least ten minutes’ worth of work from me into the garbage without so much as scanning my suggestions and commentary. I gave one essay assignment just numbers. No comments, just numbers. Only one student said anything at all about it, and it was simply curiosity.The freak-out go-getters? They didn’t want to improve themselves. They wanted to get to their 100%. That’s it. They would ask me what they had to do to get it. I’d ask them about their process, their strategies, why they did what they did, ask them to self-reflect on how well certain things worked for them.And I’d watch them get visibly upset by this.They didn’t want to think about this. They didn’t want to learn how to be better writers in the future.They wanted a formula to fix it and get the points and move on.I realized that I had to teach my students how to be students. They had been boxed into being cookie-cutter people who did precisely what was required of them and nothing more. There was no creativity. No strategic thinking. No conceptualization. No learning.To curve or not to curve…The current scoring system is meaningless, but that’s not even where it ends. It’s not even consistent.We set the “average” at 75%. So, what happens if everyone messes with the average and it really works out to something other than 75%?We “curve” the grades and redistribute them them with a 75% mean and a normal distribution outside of that.If all the students do exceptionally well and everyone signNowes 95%+ because the teacher did a great job and the students all learned something, what happens? Do they all get A’s for mastery?Nope.Because we have to rank them, see? We have to decide who “wins.” And if they’re all bunched up together, that’s hard to do, especially if they’re all bunched together at the top.And so a student who has clearly mastered the material ends up with a C, because everyone else also mastered the material.How angry would you be to get a C with a 98% on an assignment or in a course, knowing that it could seriously impact your overall grade point average, and knowing that you mastered the material?This happened to me in law school. The professor was great. He gave us straightforward assignments that made sense and were not tricks or traps. We essentially had to find the right forms on the online legal databases, fill them out properly, and and incorporate all the information from our mock client correctly. It wasn’t exactly monkey work, but it wasn’t difficult, because the professor showed us how to do it well.But the course had more than 18 people in it, so by school policy, it was on a mandatory forced curve.I had a 97% in the class, and received a B-.97%.B minus.I raged my way down to the registrar, because this one course screwed up my GPA by three tenths of a point and almost cost me a summa cum laude. Her hands were tied. School policy. I showed her all my assignments. The lowest score was a 96%. A’s on every assignment. No dice. The registrar told me that other students in my cohort would likely face the same situation with other courses and reassured me that I’d be fine.I did manage to get that summa cum laude honor, but only by working night and day and by avoiding any mandatory forced curve class from there on out.What did I learn from that experience? Was it to work hard and be rewarded appropriately? To master the content?No.It was to monitor class sizes.Standards-based grading, properly implemented, should replace the ancient and largely useless scoring system we currently use.Standards-based grading is not a new invention, but it’s only more recently becoming a more commonplace aspect of secondary education.However, many institutions are just adjusting the old grading scale and slapping a “standards-based” sticker on it. Instead of a 100% scale, now it’s a 4- or 5-point scale, where 3/5 is passing, which equates to… lemme do the math… 60%.Many of these new assessment scales don’t bother with required proficiencies, so students just have to signNow a required minimum score to pass, and can still fail to learn important, critical concepts and skills and progress anyway.This is just a repackaging of the old system with new, shiny labels on it.I had to get my students to divorce the concept of a final score from their feedback entirely to get standards based grading to work.I did it one unit with colors for proficiency levels. I gave them a set of standards and told them that they had to signNow green or blue in each one. I showed them what green and blue looked like, and what orange and red looked like. I gave them detailed criteria for signNowing green and blue. I required green or blue in each category. I didn’t tell them what the colors meant in terms of A, B, etc.They could do projects and assignments I gave them, or they could design their own evidence of proficiency. They had to run it by me first, but I was pretty open about it.They wanted to know what an A was. I told them not to worry about it. They got nervous. I told them seriously not to worry about the letter grade. Just get to green or blue. On all of it. That was the goal. I’d make sure they got good grades in the system if they did.They read the standards. They understood the standards. They invented their own projects. They took the feedback on them seriously, and revised their projects. They self-assessed to make arguments about why they deserved green or blue.In the end, every student in that test class signNowed proficiency on all eight standards laid out in the curriculum for that unit. All 19 students. Every one of them. I gave them all A’s.I was told I could’t run that unit that way again, because parents didn’t understand it. They couldn’t figure out how to calculate the grade. The A seemed arbitrary to them.I pointed out that the students had all signNowed proficiency or mastery on every standard.Didn’t matter.I couldn’t justify a percentage, as far as the administration and parents were concerned. And that’s all anyone cared about.Absolutely, the American system of grading is not just flawed, but utterly broken.Thanks for the A2A.

If we are to improve our leadership skills, then it is important that we are aware of our strengths and weaknesses, our values and behaviors, and the ways in which we attempt to influence others. In other words, self-awareness and self-reflection is about learning to understand our leadership style.

Developing emotional self-awareness is a crucial first step in effective leadership because it lays the foundation upon which emotional and social intelligence is built. ... Emotional self-awareness also helps leaders link their emotions to the effectiveness of their interactions with others.

Reflective leadership is the key to creating a relationship-based organization. It is characterized by three important skills: self-awareness, careful observation, and flexible response. ... Flexible responses require that leaders know their staff\u2014what their personal styles are, how they work best, what motivates them.

If we are to improve our leadership skills, then it is important that we are aware of our strengths and weaknesses, our values and behaviors, and the ways in which we attempt to influence others. In other words, self-awareness and self-reflection is about learning to understand our leadership style.

They require the student to write about a personal experience. The primary purposes are to explore the experience, reflect on the positive and negative aspects of it and to formulate goals to improve the experience or results of the activity the next time it occurs.