My Strategic Vision for Omaha and Nebraska
Together, we can make Omaha and Nebraska number one in education and thus innovation and business opportunity in the country! It starts with community engagement and leadership working with me as your State Board of Education member. I'll be fighting to better education for everyone, to support communities, for better schools, human capital development and infrastructure development and to ensure the maintenance and expansion of and more use of our great parks, locally and state wide, as places for family and community facilitated and supervised learning like none other.
Strategic
VisionLet us work together to make Omaha a beacon to the Nation and to the World. North, Midtown, and South Omaha and beyond have tremendous vibrancy and potential. Yet in some ways this potential is currently underutilized. Stronger partnerships can be build. Our youth may struggle to find meaningful after school activities to complement and nurture their learning in school. We have the experience to deliver and facilitate these, and we've fought hard to convince the school district to work with us to enhance students-schools-parents-community partnerships.
Join me in creating opportunity based on the community strength, our cities' and our state's natural beauty and remarkable quality of life that we already enjoy, and particularly our diversity, creativity and innovation potential in Omaha and beyond. I'll work for an education system that is supportive of trusting learners to do their best, so that over time we support the best inquisitive minds making possible the best in class small business entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation in the country and the world.
Listening to your suggestions I am a listener. As part of my professional life, I help my graduate students and others to self-motivate to achieve their fullest potential. It is what I do best. As part of state government I intend to help Nebraska's communities achieve their full potential. It is time that government listened to the great ideas that come from communities that seek to solve their own problems. Not dictating action from higher levels of government but facilitating these community ideas is the traditional American way. It is my way.
Made in AmericaExcessive compliance taught in schools has damaged over time America's capacity to invent the future. Seldom do we still see a "Made in America" label on anything. Let's change that and let's start here. Join with me to make Omaha, Nebraska a
startup and entrepreneurship capital. Let's help our youth revive American innovation and with that grow all the opportunities, jobs and community prosperity that it will bring.
Much Better EducationTake back our schools! Let's target entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation as achieved behaviors from an early age in our children. Can we just imagine what would have happened if a Thomas A. Edison would have gone to one of our public schools? He would have just learned "you can't do that!" Electric light, sound movies, and even the iPod or MP3 player (whose grandfather is Edison's gramophone) could have taken decades more to be invented.
Let us work together to make sure such an attitude in education does not darken our future and let's maintain control of education at the community level.
Let us work together to make sure such an attitude in education does not darken our future and let's maintain control of education at the community level.
Motivate Youth for better Return on Educational InvestmentPsychology 101 teaches us that if one likes something they never perceive it as work. Helping learners self-motivate to do their always improves educational performance. Learning to meet standardized test standards only, with little to no perceived practical application to the things to be learned, generally kills creativity and almost any curiosity in learners. Because of school boredom what we usually do is to raise taxes to spend more money per student. Remember though how much money was spent by a school for the invention of the gramophone, or of feasible electric light. Was twitter a successful graded school project? Motivating students better can both improve educational performance and may even lead to lowering property and profit taxes, which combined with greater availability of talent may in turn further attract more investments in the Silicon Prairie and may fuel entrepreneurship, and thus supports and accelerates economic growth and improvement of quality of life for all.
Infrastructure support and quality of life projects offering complementary youth activities after school hours are wise investments in the future of communities. The return is obvious: everyone benefits from better economic opportunity.
Let us build and apply this simple lesson together.
Infrastructure support and quality of life projects offering complementary youth activities after school hours are wise investments in the future of communities. The return is obvious: everyone benefits from better economic opportunity.
Let us build and apply this simple lesson together.
Community ValuesIt is our community values and staying strong together that help us through hard times. As a people, we can weather any storm that comes upon us because we are fortified by our beliefs, morals and ethics, and our ability to find solutions together. Solid American values are a part of us. By instilling them in our children we will create economic growth and community strength into the future.
Daily Teasers for Teachers and Critical Thinkers
Physics
Rocks