Reaping the Most out of Summer

Often, it seems we start the summer with all these great plans for our children (our last two at home are our middle school twin sons), but end the summer mildly disappointed that they didn't accomplish more.

It's not that I want to impose some rigid schedule; I relished those long summer days growing up, playing and exploring and enjoying life. But we thought that this summer we might come up with a simple reminder to help our children set some priorities and learn the joy of accomplishing something each day.

Since the successful person "reaps" something out of each day, we'll use that as our acrostic:

Read Something
Exercise
Accomplish Something
Play
Serve Someone

We'll post this on the refrigerator, review it each day and let you know how it works as the summer progresses!

Learn from One Another: Filmmakers Help One Another to Success

This is an "intercom insight" I added this morning to our resources at www.character-education.info.

Julia Cameron was married to filmmaker Martin Scorsese in his early years. In her book, Finding Water, she recalls that Scorsese's friends included Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Coppola and Brian De Palma, all of whom would later become famous filmmakers. What's interesting concerning character and life skills is how they supported one another and sharpened one another's talents.

"They screened early cuts of their films for comments and input. I remember a sequence of New York, New York being reversed and revamped at George Lucas's suggestion."

As they became successful, they continued to help one another. Example: they would suggest actors for one-another's films - "Scorsese suggested De Niro to Coppola for The Godfather: Part II."

Today, these five filmmakers are numbered among the greatest ever. But you have to wonder if they could have ever become great in isolation. By sharing their ideas and lending helping hands, they paved one another's roads to success.

(Written by Steve Miller for www.character-education.info All Rights Reserved. Source: Julia Cameron, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance (New York: The Penguin Group, 2006), p. 87.)

Here are some ways you could get interaction when following-up the story with a class, or your children:

For Discussion

1) What movies do you know of by these filmmakers? (Examples: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, The Aviator, The Rainmaker, etc.)
2) How did they help one another?
3) Why do you think we often resist getting and giving input to one another in our fields of interest?
4) How could each of us begin helping and encouraging one another in an area of interest this week?