As it is the end of the first semester of my doctoral program, I thought it'd be worthwhile to reflect on what I've learned from my class this time around. I have, taken the class EDUC 7610, it's called the Learning Community.

And we are talking about citizenship and civility.

While I get quite bored of discussions about politics, I was able to reinforce some of the beliefs that I have around certain things. I think my biggest takeaway from this class is being able to articulate some things that I'd had thoughts about, but hadn't been able to articulate previous to taking this class.

And, there's value in that. 

[00:00:58] Defining Our Own Values

Number one, I really doubled down on my belief that we each have to define our own values, and the only way that we are going to have any success in our own personal life is if we really do define our own values and then stick to them.

I was coaching a school principal outside of class and this idea of her acting in alignment with her values came up and what made that conversation so powerful is that there was a situation where something happened and she didn't say anything but in her heart she knew that that thing that she didn't comment on was really important to her.

But she didn't comment on it. She was not acting in alignment with her values.

And when I suggested to her that she should act in alignment with her values, then she suddenly saw how important that was to her personally and what that meant.

This really helped her see that it's not about the values of the organization that you're working for, or about the values of the society that you live in, but it's about you acting in alignment with your own values.

When I mention this, people say, "Well, what if your values don't line up with my values?" Well, that happens. The real issue is can you respect and love someone enough to allow them to act in alignment with their values, even if those disagree with you? Now, in order for us to have a society that is civil and worthwhile, there are certain values that we need to have across the board like, it's not okay to kill people. We need to respect others. And if somebody doesn't have those values, then that can certainly make relationships with that person difficult. That can make interactions with them difficult.

But part of this is also that I truly believe that if left to their own devices, we all have goodness within us that helps us decide to have positive pro social values.

Personally, I call this the Light of Christ.

There are aberrations and people who are sociopaths who don't have those values, and there always will be. That's why we have laws as a society to make sure that people are acting in appropriate ways.

And this is a personal reflection for me. When you act in alignment with your values, then your story doesn't change. And this is something that I personally have struggled with, that my actions and what I do would change, and my teachers and people that I've led would say, Why is Jethro making this decision?

He made this totally opposite decision just a couple days ago. Why is he now making this other weird decision? And what I've personally realized through the discussions we've had in this class is that when I'm saying something to be heard or to be seen as special or doing something for attention, then my performance is going to be different.

When I act in alignment with my values, then I'm consistent with those values. Anytime I'm not acting in alignment with my values, I'm not consistent in how I behave. And that was a really powerful self awareness piece for me.

There were a couple instances this semester where People that I coach would say things like, "Yes, Jethro, I've heard you say that before," or "Yes, Jethro has told me this before." And what's reaffirming to me is that those were phrases that are deeply aligned with my values, and I think that that was a really powerful experience for me personally.

[00:05:26] See Others

The next big point that I want to talk about is that all the suggestions for civility in our conversations ultimately came down to one simple thing. That is to really see other people and see their value as human beings. The way I personally describe this is that I see them as children of God who have great potential.

And that's what works for me.

But regardless of whether or not you agree with that particular approach, really seeing people makes a huge difference.

That was a really big awakening for me. 

We talked about all these different ideas and ways of doing things, and ultimately what it always boiled down to was just see the other person and make sure they know that you see them, as a human being. That was really powerful for me.

[00:06:17] Education is the responsibility of parents

And then finally, my last reflection here is this idea of education being the responsibility of parents and the state merely supports parents in that responsibility. I think this is such a fundamental shift in how we have done school and approached school for so long that I would say most educators don't agree with that.

Most educators believe that it is their responsibility to educate kids, and they try to get parents to help them. It's the other way around, that the responsibility for education is the parents responsibility. And we as educators simply help them educate their kids. And I think the really challenging part about this is that when we do that, we lose some power and some control.

And so much of education is based on power and control that it makes it really difficult. And there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for educators when that happens.

[00:07:20] And the Marketing Class

And while I'm here, I will also comment on my marketing class that I took where I learned about HubSpot and Salesforce. And that was a pretty good class, definitely giving you real skills that are worthwhile and meaningful, so I appreciate that. The thing that I really took away from that class is that...

I am just all over the place with my content. 

I've got multiple podcasts in different areas. I've got social media channels. I've got this newsletter slash blog. I've got my blog on JethroJones. com and there's just so much and I really need to simplify and drill down to what it is that I really want to use for communication with my audience. I need to simplify.

That's what it ultimately comes down to. 

[00:08:20] Conclusion

So, in conclusion, big things. Number one, define your own values and act in accordance with your values. Act in alignment with your values. Number two. Really see other people. Number three, simplify.