Logan Meek

5 Qualities of a Good Coffee Shop

2013-03-25T18:41:00.002-07:00

Since moving to Tulsa, I've spent my fair share of time in coffee shops, drinking coffee and doing work. On days when I have to do more work after I get home from my job, putting myself in the atmosphere of a good coffee shop helps my productivity and elevates my mood. I don't feel especially partial to a particular coffee shop though. In fact I end up going to a different one almost every time I go out. As a result, I've had a chance to think for a while about what makes a good coffee shop. Here's my list . . .

Writing today from inside this nice Starbucks.

1. Lots of outlets-
Any place that is going to help me be productive needs to have room for me to plug in my laptop, even if it is crowded inside. There are few things more frustrating - ok there are a lot of things more frustrating - than ordering a drink and finding out that there is nowhere to charge my computer as I work.

2. Plenty of room-
The first thing I consider when I walk in the door of a coffee shop is whether or not there's going to be somewhere good for me to sit. Good seats are found along the wall, near an outlet, and hopefully not directly under a light. If I can find somewhere to sit, I claim the spot by dropping off my bag there before I order. If I can't find a spot that I feel comfortable working in, then I'm back out the door and on to the next coffee shop.

3. Good Music-
Sometimes I want to listen to my own music, but when I don't, I need the house music to be something good. It should be entertaining without becoming distracting. Enough to keep my brain awake, but not so loud that it's all I think about. I do frequent one coffee shop that doesn't play music. That's ok too.

4. Clean Bathrooms-
If I'm going to stay for a while, the bathrooms need to be clean.

5. A bottomless cup-
Finding a place that offers a bottomless cup (or refills for under $1.00) is a good bonus. I won't always order it, but I enjoy knowing that if I want to drink a lot of coffee I can do it for cheap.

5 Things I Have Learned This Year

2013-03-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

Overdue for a post, I know. I have been posting sporadically in the Meekbrain Blog designed for my class. Since I've been so long for this little space on the internet, I thought I could focus on a few things I have learned since the beginning of the year. After all, it's been almost three months, which puts us 25% of the way there.

1. Keep a level head.
In my job as a sixth grade teacher, it can sometimes seem like my main clients (i.e. my students) exist purely to drive me mad. And when they do end up driving me mad, it makes them so happy. I have to be constantly reminding myself to maintain control of my emotions. By doing this I don't just avoid the drain of fluctuating feelings, but I also reinforce my own authority in the classroom situation. If I show someone that their actions can affect the way I feel, they'll likely cash in on that knowledge (for better or worse).

2. Make time for fun.
What's the point of working so hard if I can't have fun doing it? I won't be able to do anything for a lifetime if I am unable to find the ability to smile while I'm doing it. But often times the fun won't happen unless I go out of my way to make sure that it happens. What do you think the flying tomato's take on this one would be?

Shaun White is very successful, and he's always having fun.

3. I can only control me.
My life would be so much simpler if everyone would just do what I wanted them to do. But if things were easy, we also wouldn't have to work at anything. The only reason we have histories of great leaders is because we live in a world where people are a hard sell. It's not simple to convince someone to do something, but if I want to be successful, I have to continue learning how to motivate others.

4. I don't enjoy planning ahead.
I love thinking about goals for the long term. I love seeing the end result. I don't enjoy planning the daily details to get me there. I would much rather spend my time doing than planning. But it is a valuable a necessary skill to plan the details before I do them. That's the best reliable way to achieve the outcome that I want to. It's just not fun.

5. Cooking goes better when planned.
Along the lines on number 4, it is hard to cook for one without planning in advance. I don't always have an abundance of ingredients on hand, and without planning, putting together the food I already have usually ends in some kind of pasta. Pasta with red sauce... Pasta with pesto... Pasta with butter... Olive oil... Parmesan... Eating is better when I make a grocery list.

Mind-Shift

2012-08-12T21:22:00.002-07:00

One thing I have learned during my short time in the classroom with Teach For America is the importance of perspective. I have a great book that I read a section of daily called Teach Like A Champion. The section I read today was titled "no apology."

My perspective on the material I present to my students implicitly communicates my expectations to them.

Definitely not an apology.

I taught reading and writing class during summer school, and many of my students needed to make their biggest academic growth in these subjects. I know from my German classes in college that when we are still learning to read, reading is uncomfortable, intimidating, and boring. It's my job as a teacher to find a way to help my students cope with these feelings and also engage with the material.

Many times my strategy to do this has been to apologize for the material. I'll say something like "I'm sorry guys I know that this isn't the most interesting thing in the world, but we all need to learn this because these skills will help you out for the rest of your life." Even though this might be true - (reading is a lot of fun, but sometimes it is boring) - it doesn't do my students any good when their teacher reinforces the belief that reading and being in school is boring.

The importance of perspective in the classroom is the same as everywhere else. I could view my time in Oklahoma as an unfortunate period until I can be free of it and move back home, but thankfully I have been able to see it as an adventure. Because of that, I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot along the way.

Where else can this perspective mindshift tilt a situation toward the positive side for me? Is there a mindshift you can make toward positive?

5 Lessons of the Summer

2012-08-12T21:21:00.002-07:00

All summer long I have been working with Teach for America in Oklahoma. Here are five lessons I have learned from the time I have spent in and out of the classroom.

1. Follow Through

I list this lesson first for a reason. If I choose not to follow through on my tasks and goals, there is no way I can be a leader. It is easy to have big plans and ideas. It's easy to talk about why things are wrong and how they can change. But it's hard to follow through and actually do things. Making the choice to be all talk and no action is making the choice to affirm the status-quo. I can probably do that and float along without anyone really caring, but exceptional results won't ever happen without hard work.

2. Communicate

In college my fraternity had a "house email" list. Someone sent an email out to everyone in our chapter, and we would just use the reply-all button to keep the list going and send new messages to everyone. Most of these emails weren't incredibly important. In fact, most were incredibly unimportant. They might have been links to youtube videos or funny pictures. And if an email was important, most of the time I could just skim it and get the point of what I needed to know. I trained myself to believe that replying to emails wasn't important.

It's important. I have a lot of work to do to improve my communication skills. It's a chore, and it takes time away that I could be using to follow through on my goals, but I know that I need to be disciplined and set aside time to be accessible to others.

3. Embrace the Challenge

So far the things that I have been doing haven't been easy. I spend a lot of time wondering what is expected of me and then rushing to complete big tasks at the last minute when I figure out what the expectation is. But I could be doing a lot of other things right now that aren't nearly as exciting. I am in a place where I have the opportunity to leverage all my skills to solve problems. That's exciting. My perspective will help me stay positive.

4. Bend Like a Willow

I never know when things are going to change without warning, and it doesn't help me get my job done to stress when things do change. When I first came to Oklahoma I thought I would be teaching high school English. Now I'm going to be teaching science and social studies in an elementary school. When the wind blows through a willow tree it stays rooted firmly in the ground and lets its branches bend freely. That kind of flexibility helps me stay grounded and not get too upset about whatever might happen.

This willow will be ok because it's bending.

5. Have Fun

Why do anything if it's not fun? Attitude can change any perspective on what I have to do. I want to leave myself in a place where I'm doing everything possible to build that fun attitude. If I can convince other people to have fun with me, I'll be well on my way to doing a good job.

End of Instruction

2012-07-11T14:24:00.004-07:00

EOI. End of Instruction.

This is the name of the high stakes exams that Oklahoma high schoolers must pass before they are eligible to graduate from high school.

Teach for America has their own type of exam that must be passed before a TFA corps member can become a teacher in the fall. This "exam" is called Institute, and it runs for a five week period in the summer.

I have been teaching rising 8th graders all summer at McLain High / Jr High School in Tulsa. The students in my class need the summer school credit to move on to the 8th grade, and they come from several different schools from around the Tulsa Public Schools district.

This is McLain

We started on June 18, and our last day of summer school is this Friday, July 13. Tomorrow our students take their own version of a high stakes test. They will be taking a summative assessment (which was given on the first day of summer school) to see how much their reading, writing, and math skills have grown over the past month. The results of this exam will help to determine whether or not they move on to the 8th grade.

While the Teach For America institute is not meant to be an exam as much as it is an opportunity (or mandate) for me to refine my teaching skills in a high stress environment, I have the unique chance to see how my skills have also grown over the summer. My students are a reflection of me in this way. We are all growing together. We are going from places where our skills are far behind where they need to be, and we are striving to get to a place where we all excel.

We have had our battles along the way. I never expected to get so much pushback from my students as we struggle together to learn. I assumed that my students would already be wholly invested in the importance of every day they have to learn. I should have thought of myself. I wasn't always invested in school.

But every day we keep working. We start off fresh and we try to resolve to hold ourselves to the highest expectations, knowing that if we battle we will achieve. In just a couple of months empty classrooms and auditorium seats at McLain will be filled with students: some eager, some less eager, but all in need of the best education they can receive. And the future opportunities of their lives will depend on how well they are prepared at the end of their instruction.

2012-07-11T12:34:00.001-07:00

June 6, 2012

I've shipped out to Tulsa to start two years as a member of the Teach For America program in Oklahoma. It's only been a week since I've been here (and it's only been two weeks since I graduated from my college), but I feel like I have been in Oklahoma for months. I have known since January that I would be coming to Oklahoma to teach, but things seemed to sneak up on me a little bit.

This is me graduating.

I can't wait to see what Oklahoma has in store!