#how many times ive said life in this post .. english is truly failing me

[stxrlighting]

pretty twisted (??) headcanon: in an attempt to fully bring livvy back, ty has to sacrifice another person’s life (yk a life for a life for restoring the balance)

the catch? the only life the universe is accepting is kits one

[conflictcrafter]

thirty-o(ugh)ne

Ive been pondering about direction. Ive confided to some friends recently that I kind of envy people who make “paningkamot” in life. How do we translate that? Those who “buckle down” in life, or those who “take the bull by the horns.” Like what I said, I envy those people because they seem to have something going in their lives. They seem to have a goal, and thus, a direction. I don’t envy them for their direction though, but for their determination or grit. I don’t have that. Or rather, I have not cultivated that drive. I grew up knowing that I’m brilliant. I was not a consistent honor student, nor the achiever type. But I’ve convinced myself enough that cheetahs don’t race against rats. I knew I was naturally more creative, innovative, and outstanding compared to my peers. My brighter peers were just studious. It was enough for them to earn a place. And so, they did stuff in order to earn a place. At least that was how I saw it. A few friends dared question the system and for me, it was these friends who are truly intelligent. I identify with the later. I did not really strive on something. Was talented enough to just get by. Reached a certain level of competence that nobody could tell me where I should have improved. My teacher-coaches never really coached me, and so I thought I was doing fine. They used to just call me when contest dates were near. Thus, I was never “trained” or anything like that. But I learned enough from my many exposures that I developed on my own and questioned existing contest structures. To be fair though, I knew deep down that I wasn’t really that good but from where I spent my formative years, I was the best pick for outside-school events. I looked at myself as someone who is not academically competent, but I knew I was a force in aspects of creativity. This I did not study or force. This comes naturally to me. And perhaps I’ve developed a cognitive behavior to easily adapt and think about concepts and all that. I formed a consciousness in creativity, and this might be argued as studying and perhaps I did. But nobody told me or coached me or trained me to arrive to this consciousness. I know I cannot attribute everything to myself. I am not. But I never experienced any formal training on the matter, is what I am saying. And so, there was actually no opportunity for me to make “paningkamot” on anything. We are also not poor. We are not that comfortable though. There’s a level of comfort, yes. But we still cooked by coal for at least ten years. We budgeted our meals, and I never confided to my parents my ambition of becoming a filmmaker because I knew they could not have sent me to Cebu, where the nearest film school from Davao was located at that time. Point is, we were getting by but we were not entirely poor. This afforded me no full scholarships. And so, I was never really down or up. I was (and is) at the middle. And being at the middle has its own downside as I have little to lose and little to gain. Nothing matters. I graduated cum laude in college, and this made me a little sad because I did not give my all in studying. This was my natural. I am excellent by default. I even wasted my time building romantic relationships, disturbing my academic progress. And yet, I graduated cum laude. When I applied for a teaching job, three out of three schools I applied to called me back. (Chose the nearest to home.) When I applied for a teaching post in DepED, I prepared my lesson plan and instructional materials the night before my demo teaching. Was still ranked second of all District 2 applicants for English at the time (the one who secured the first rank was at least ten years older than me and had a master’s degree). And may I add, when I took the LET, I slept. The proctor had to wake me up because I was snoring. My life is not a story of strife and struggle. I am simply brilliant. And so, I did not strive for excellence. It was my second nature. And if at times I failed, I failed not because I suck but because I hadn’t had enough time—because I always procrastinated. And I always do because I knew I could just wing it was. I also chose my battles. When you’d ask me to do maths, of course, I’d steer clear of that battle. It’s yours, man. In other words, I could easily accept facts I have no control. Speaking of acceptance, I’ve developed some kind of an acceptance acquisition device which enables me to feel anything from the spectrum of plain acceptance to complete apathy on matters in question. I am very sentimental that I tend to hoard things for such value but for the most mundane reasons, I could easily get rid of things. Right now, I could throw anything I posses except my books, my camera, and my laptop. One time, I tore the only drawing my mother liked of all my drawings in my lifetime. I have thrown relationships that I cultivated for years. I took the saying “people come and go” by heart to the point that when I lose someone, either by death or by entropy, I could only say “well,” and move on. Not to sound emotional but truly, I’ve been through worse than being worries about relationships reading their ends. Right now, I could only think of two persons who might have a real impact when they ever decide to cut ties. Point is, I do not care, man. I do not feel. When my mother died, I wasn’t sure what to feel. Or if I felt anything. Of course, I cried. But what, twice? thrice? —and long after she was buried. During the wake, it felt like I was just running errands. But to be fair, maybe this is really how everyone who loses a parent feels. I’m digressing but what I’m trying to say is that I am being entropic, softly isolating, slowly sliding further away until detachment becomes a non-issue. I honestly do not know if everyone feels anything similar or if this is maximized by the pandemic. But with these are the things that I see that somehow affected by ponderings on direction. I will turn 31 in two months. What the fuck is this age? My consciousness is still closer to being childish than to being adultish. I’ve no adult tendencies like preparing things for tomorrow or anything to that effect, except when it comes to, say, arts. Even that, still, I could forego if I would ever feel lazy at a whim. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this shit that I feel right now and am still inclined to think about them although writing them down in this post is starting to disinterest me. and thus I could just leave this post unfinished.

[hotelload494]

Our Revels Now Are Ended

Our Revels Now Are Ended Akira The Don

Our Revels Now Are Ended

Our Revels Now Are Ended The Tempest Act Iv Scene I

Our Revels Now Are Ended Youtube

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision. 13 thoughts on “ Our Revels Now Are Ended. ” ST says: March 1, 2020 at 6:47 pm “Farewell the tranquil mind.” Indeed!

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded.

Title: Our revels now are ended Author: bsimon Last modified by: bsimon Created Date: 5/18/2006 3:17:00 PM Other titles: Our revels now are ended.

Prospero and Miranda from the Paralympic opening ceremony

2012 has been the year of The Tempest. During this year of the World Shakespeare Festival at least three productions have been seen in the UK, and the play featured in the opening ceremonies for both the Olympics and Paralympics. Danny Boyle took much of his inspiration from the play’s themes of magic, humanity and reconciliation, entitling the ceremony “Isles of Wonder”. Kenneth Branagh, dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, delivered Caliban’s “The isle is full of noises” speech, and for the Paralympics Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings gave us Ian McKellen as Prospero delivering speeches inspired by the play while Nicola Miles-Wildin as Miranda delivered her lines on the beauty of mankind, “O brave new world that has such people in it”.

At the British Museum’s current Shakespeare: Staging the World exhibition the final room is devoted to the play. The room is bathed in light after the darkness of the rest of the exhibition. Here we find terrestrial and celestial Globes symbolising exploration and discovery, the Robben Island Shakespeare reminding us of Shakespeare’s universal importance, and a recording of Ian McKellen delivering one of Prospero’s final speeches about reconciliation.

The productions have been as varied as the rest of the year’s Shakespeare offerings. The Globe to Globe production was performed in Bangla by the Dhaka Theatre of Bangladesh, with English subtitles. This vibrant production is available to view on The Space.

The RSC’s production is one of the trilogy of Shipwreck plays with Jonathan Slinger as a young, angry Prospero in David Farr’s modern dress production.

Tim Pigott-Smith as Prospero

Last Saturday another production of the play, directed by Adrian Noble, closed at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Noble’s production has been adapted from the San Diego Festival where it was the hit of 2011.

I was at the final performance, on the night before the closing ceremony of the Paralympics. Like the Olympics and Paralympics the production celebrated life, joy and emotion. In the build-up to the closing ceremony comedian Jimmy Carr was interviewed. “I’ve had a summer off from cynicism” he said.

This production connects with the audience from the start: Tim Pigott-Smith strides downstage, surveys the house sternly and strikes the boards with his magic staff. Pigott-Smith has played his fair share of unpleasant characters but here he doesn’t remain harsh for long. Miranda, played by Iris Roberts and Ferdinand (Mark Quartley) are a couple many fathom deep in love, and the atmosphere of delight is shared with the cast of curious islanders. Comedy is in the reliable hands of Geoffrey Freshwater and Mark Hadfield.

The programme editorial by Stuart Leeks focuses on the history of theatrical magic, but points out that although it’s now possible to create illusions by the use of projected images, “the greatest magic in The Tempest surely lies in the words used to summon up the fabric of this vision: the extraordinarily rich, supple, compacted verse”. In this well-spoken production magic is summoned, not by technology, but by a huge blue silk cloth. The islanders use it to make waves, to conceal entrances and exits, cover objects, as a dance partner. Ariel’s shadow as the Harpy is projected onto it, and the red eyes of the dogs that pursue Stephano and Trinculo glow behind it.

Our Revels Now Are Ended Akira The Don

At the end of the play Prospero speaks his final speech on a bare stage. He asks for help “or else my project fails/Which was to please”. He finds his redemption in connecting with the rest of humanity, and the cast joyfully leave the stage to clasp the hands of the audience.

Our revels now are ended: this summer both sport and culture have celebrated the human spirit with optimism and warmth. Long may it continue.

Condolences have come in from all over the country on the passing away of theatre doyen and art connoisseur Ebrahim Alkazi (18 October 1925 – 4 August 2020). However, what touched the heart was a Facebook post by Kumara Varma, who was schooled in theatre direction at the National School of Drama (NSD) and spent a lifetime in Chandigarh doing memorable plays and later heading the department of Indian theatre at Panjab University. Posting a black and white portrait of Alkazi, Varma quotes Shakespeare from The Tempest: “Our revels have now ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and, Are melted into air, into thin air.”

Our Revels Now Are Ended

Now settled in his home state of Kerala at Trichur, Varma says: “These are the lines that came to my mind when the news of Alkazi’s passing away came and one says with humble pride that whatever one learned was from him. He shaped modern Indian theatre and it was he who set the tradition of translating plays written in different regional languages all over the country and staging them in Hindustani. His repertoire was thus truly pan-Indian”.

© Provided by Hindustan Times Director Ebrahim Alkazi ()

Legend of Tughlaq

With this we come to the spectacular production of Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq, which was originally written in Kannada and translated for Alkazi by yet another brilliant director-musician of modern Indian theatre, late BV Karanth. Karnad was to say thus of Alkazi: “His fundamental contribution was to devise a methodology of theatre training which has continued after him, and to create a body of actors and directors which transformed the notion of theatre at the grassroots.” Interestingly, Alkazi first assigned Om Shivpuri to take up Tughlaq as a student production. Karnad was acknowledge that it was immaterial that these were only student productions: “Doors that we, in our vernaculars did not even know existed, had begun to open.”

Karnad, who sourced his plays from myth and history, wrote Tughlaq in 1964, based on the maverick life of the 14th century Sultan of Delhi, Mohammad Bin Tughlaq.

Alkazi as the founding director of NSD from 1962 to 1977, in those 15 years, directed to perfection many plays, yet his three definitive works to be staged in the backdrop of Delhi’s Purana Qila were Andha Yug, Razia Sultan and Tughlaq. The last which he first staged in 1962 is counted as one of the best productions the country saw in modern times is because it brought together some of the best talents of the country: Alkazi, Karanth, Karnad and of course the famous actor Manohar Singh, the Himachal boy who was groomed by his teacher to be one of the best actors on stage. Manohar was the first and only choice of Alkazi, who said: “Manohar had the aristocracy of spirit, nobility of soul and complete humility in understanding and enacting a role.”

Varma, who played the junior guard recalls, “The play had passed from history into legend while it was still being enacted. Artiste Kamal Tewari recalling the magnificent and unparalleled performance of Manohar Singh, says: “I was included in the production playing one of the conspiring Ameers and I remember the slap Manohar Singh gave me sent me hurling some six feet away”. Veteran actor Rani Balbir Kaur adds, “I travelled a number of times till the play was active to see it and each time it was a great experience. What dialogue delivery by Manohar Singh! I first met Kumara Varma there playing the young guard to whom Manohar renders the famous speech ‘Umangon bhari umar hai, Khwab dekhne ki umar, Saare aalam ko jeetne ki umar’ (It is your age of exaltation, The time to indulge in dreams, The time to conquer the whole world)’.”

Our Revels Now Are Ended The Tempest Act Iv Scene I

Flash forward to 1980s

It was in the mid-1980s during a meeting with actor Meeta Vashisht, who one knows from her Chandigarh theatre days, at the NSD hostel. One got talking about Tughlaq. Meeta recounted that the boy students would down beer, strip off most of their clothing and recite the dialogues of Tughlaq till late at night. Not surprising for that’s how it was and is in boys’ hostels. The young ones were giving an irreverent tribute but a tribute nevertheless. At the same time they were practising dialogue delivery at its best. Yes, and as a friendly neighbourhood journalist one had the privilege of spending a few evenings with Manohar Singh who would pick up the play and recite some of the dialogues. I earned his wrath when I once dosed off a little in the middle of the renderings and he told me to get up, fix myself a drink, and carried on reciting.

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Such was the magic of Tughlaq, a political play that was written on the faultline of Nehruvian socialism, yet in such a manner that it reached out to all in its multilayered delineation to one and all.

Our Revels Now Are Ended Youtube

Halo custom edition download google drive. Sign on to read the HT ePaper epaper.hindustantimes.com

[identitycris1s]

im back

hi just thought id pop in with a status update! maybe i’ll break this down into categories. feel like im doing an email update (ew!) but this rly is probs the best way to structure this post...

work / school (?)

work has been....aite. idk what to say. idk if i have unrealistic expectations of what work is supposed to be, but the idealist in me thinks its wrong to not even try and find something that seems meaningful / is deeply fulfilling. i think im mature enough to get that work isnt supposed to be fun / exciting every single day but bro this daily grind / sense of dread / utter disinterest / feeling of futility / frustration / disenchantment surely isnt the correct state of affairs.....at least let me try and find something that is a better fit, thats more stimulating, that feels more NATURAL to me? i just dont think im cut out to be a lawyer. sure i sometimes like arguing and making my point and i like that everyone i work with is smart and interesting and generally kind and reasonable and i like the prestige of the job and feeling like ppl respect me and i like the decent pay and the humane hours but.....i feel unmotivated to be a good lawyer. i think i find it difficult / disingenuous to always 100% get behind my client and advocate for their best interests. i tend to see things from a zoomed out perspective, like WHY are we fighting, WHY cant we just settle, WHY are the claimants pursuing this absolutely crap and unmeritorious claim and WHY do we have to defend it when its stupid and bound to fail (cos access2justice i guess but still, WHY), WHY cant we just hash things out in a meeting instead of sending emails here and there and wasting time, WHY do we have to answer stupid questions, WHY WHY WHY

and i think public policy is sort of an answer to that....i think theres more questioning of why we do things and why a policy will or will not work, in a macro sense - what is good for society at large. whereas in law (at least in litigation) its how can we just move this case forward and help the client, which is often not the most productive thing to do in a macro sense - very much a zero sum game. i get that shitty / unmeritorious claims still need to be defended against and someone has to do it and I GET IT but i just dont think i want to be that person defending these claims...or bringing them for that matter.....ultimately i cant fully / sincerely separate the overarching sense of futility from the duty to do a good job.

sigh. well at least ive kind of figured out this isnt for me. which is scary cos being a lawyer in this firm is pretty much a career for life - truly an iron rice bowl, i could probably make partner in maybe 4 or 5 years and live a comfortable upper middle class life...but i cant bring myself to do that. i cant bring myself to not give myself a shot at doing something i actually find interesting, stimulating and that i care about deeply. call me crazy! we’ll see where this brings me in 5 years’ time....:)��

anyway most ppl at work (at least in my team) know that im most likely gonna leave soon. i rly only told 2 ppl (my boss cos he had to sign off on my testimonial and G cos she was quitting anyway)...but somehow ppl found out one way or another. i dont rly mind and ppl have been taking it pretty well and have been kind and encouraging (i guess why would they not take it well, im hardly indispensable) but i get a bit antsy thinking - what if i dont get in...then what? do i just put my head down and continue here (BUT IM SO SAD) or do i just quit without any prospects and try to find a policy-ish job??

idk. will have faith that God will put me where I need to be. he is in control of it all and I BELIEVE THIS !!! I am just a bit scared that his plan is different from what i  think i want....but this is just my human instinct and i know in my head that there is no reason to be scared cos his plan is always the better one. head knowledge just needs to translate to heart understanding and real trust / faith.

ermmm relationships...???

i started using...cmb...idk why i find this so cringey. i guess about a year ago i couldnt imagine doing this and i kept thinking EW what if ppl i know see me and they think im a desperate saddo who cant find a bf irl and has to resort to an app EW shes so lame and ugly and gross. and i realised that is so stupid no one actually thinks that way and its very backward and dumb and insecure of me to be thinking that. and anyway as i get older i rly dont quite give a shit what ppl think of me (at least i tell myself that....)

i suppose i was also inspired by csm who has been quite actively using apps and meeting ppl and taking real..strides..(LOL) in her dating life. i used to tell myself hey God will provide u with a mans if he wants u to be with a mans. but also God can use an app to do that...and if i dont step out in faith that he will do something and i dont take any action at all, how is God gonna work?? should i sit at home and expect a man to fall into my lap??

for some ppl it has been way easier, e.g. my parents meeting in uni and falling i love. i always wanted that - the organic relationship, the meet-cute, the friends to lovers thing. (i guess i tried that last one before and it didnt work...) but i think theres no point in romanticising relationships anymore. thats a very modern thing to do and its not necessarily a good thing? like who’s to say a relationship that had organic beginnings is intrinsically better than one that started from an app?

anyway i havent had much luck haha i think its hard to find genuine GCBs (or maybe theyre just not attracted to me....) although recently ive been talking to this one guy B for a week or two and its been...ok i guess. hes rly nice and seemed cool at first - we talked about travelling and hamilton and the office, which was a good start. he is thoughtful and kind and doesnt seem to be put off by my very slow replies (he replies so fast......its stressful a bit) and he does the whole good morning text thing (which i frankly find a bit bizarre, we barely know each other..?? and ive never even met him irl.. but its sweet i guess :))

but DUDE his english seems to be not great - at least thats the impression i get from texting him. which is an issue for me. i dont want it to be BUT IT IS...first red flag was when he said some weird thing about not wanting to wear a mask at work (not a literal mask - like he didnt know if he could be his ‘true self’) and the wording was very strange. then he said “the weekends are almost here” ?? the weekend is not a plural though? then he used the wrong tense a few times and his apostrophe usage was wrong (”Gods’ love” - bro there is one God). he also uses way too many commas which irks me.

i mean i get that text is supposed to be an informal medium - come on look at this post, there r hardly any capital letters and plenty of short forms and hardly any apostrophes but u see its CONSISTENT and its obviously cos of laziness / convenience - but i think his problem is a bit different...u can sort of tell if someone doesnt have a 100% strong grasp of english. those r basic grammar mistakes man...i get that i sound petty and stupid and this isnt a huge deal but i feel like im settling by even talking to him cos this is not something i wld normally tolerate but hey maybe im getting desperate with age :(:(:( urgh 

on the other hand maybe i just need to be more generous with ppl and l have an irrationally high standard for english cos i am a lawyer and my friends all speak well / text well?? maybe im just being too nitpicky?? honestly hes very nice  and communicative and straightforward and seems mature and very God-fearing and idk why hes still talking to me cos ive been a bit cold and slow to respond. hes very patient which i dont rly deserve.....i myself have a million flaws that are probably way worse and egregious (ahem PRIDE...ahem ego....ie the source of this dilemma in the first place...) so maybe i should just close one eye abt the bad grammar.

i also realised how fked up i am - confirmed my suspicion that i am naturally attracted to emotionally unavailable ppl / ppl that just seem distant / out of reach (thats my avoidant attachment style right there). i think there was one day he didnt text me at all and omg...i couldnt stop thinking what i did wrong...like did i piss him off by being too cold for too long...did he get scared off cos i said i wanted to do a masters (idk this seemed like an irrational leap but i was being irrational)..then i started being nicer to him and replied more promptly hahaha turns out he was just rly bz at work that day. omg this pattern is real i think i did this with xj also - was eager to speak when he was in japan but after meeting irll i was just over it... (i am drawn to distance like a moth to a flame and i am repelled by availability like....a fire by a fire extinguisher (??)). yucks i rly hate myself sometimes but yknow what at least im self aware and im trying to fix this...kind of.. gonna hash this avoidant thing out with my therapist at the next sesh.

on the topic of xj i got a bit nostalgic and wondered why we stopped speaking (surprise surprise it was my fault, didnt reply then felt it had been left to long to pick it up again...) went back to look at our texts and aw we rly got along so well, i do miss him as a friend and im sorry about how poorly i treated him especially in dec 2018 / jan 2019 sigh.....i was a real bitch....

anyway im just gonna see how things go with B... if he asks me out i prob will go... just to give it a shot. update if / when that happens!

EDIT - he asked me out lol we shall see how it goes. 

[thesnhuup]

From New Hampshire to Nairobi: How SNHU is Scaling Breakthrough Learning for All Students

Originally published on Higher Learning Advocates: Insights & Outlooks.

Insights & Outlooks: Tell us about your own journey to getting involved in education professionally and becoming president of SNHU. What experiences inspire and motivate you to do this work?

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: My own story is that of an immigrant family and first-generation college student. I grew up in a working-class, melting-pot community in the Boston area where literally none of the parents in the neighborhood had gone to college, and it was the rare kid in our neighborhood who would go to college. I didn’t speak English when we immigrated when I was four. My mom would clean houses in Weston, which is still the wealthiest per capita community of Massachusetts. Then she sometimes would bring me and plunk me down in these libraries with beautiful wood paneled leather-smelling libraries and give me kids’ books, and that’s how I learned to read English actually before going out to kindergarten. It was a sixth-grade teacher who said to my mother during a parent conference, “Paul could go to college someday.”

This struck her like a thunderbolt. She died a few years ago at the age of 96 and carried that conversation with her verbatim. For me to go to college hadn’t even been an option in my mind, her mind or anyone else’s. I had no choice at that point; somehow, I was going to embrace her dream and go to college.

Insights & Outlooks: SNHU has become particularly well-known for its focus on providing access for students who walk a different path to and through college: working adults, veterans, parents, immigrants and refugees. In your view, should other institutions be competing to serve these students?

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: The higher ed system that we have today, if you can call it a system, is not built for the challenges we’re facing. The majority of college students we need to serve are non-traditional students, who don’t live on a residential campus with the classic, stereotypical college experience.

We are as an industry, at least in some ways, failing. We have 50 percent of students who start in higher ed not finishing. We have 37 million Americans with some credits, no degree, and an aggregate $1.3 trillion of student debt—more than all credit card debt combined. We have employers now questioning the quality of what we produce—that’s an industry in trouble. It’s in trouble at the very same time that the country needs us to produce more college graduates, or at least credential-holders who can keep up with a world of work that is changing in dramatic ways and at an ever-increasing pace.

This is happening against a backdrop in which people can no longer afford to dip into higher ed just once and then be set for the rest of their careers. We need to build a higher ed ecosystem in which learners enter and come back throughout their entire lives. We need more people serving those underserved populations. We need to serve them differently. We have to be a hell of a lot more effective with serving low-income students. If you look at college completion rates and you look at the bottom quartile in terms of income, in 25 years of college completion work, we’ve barely moved the dial. More wealthy and low-income students are finishing than ever before, but low-income students drop out of the system at the same rate they have for the last 25 years. In my view, that’s unacceptable. It’s a perfect storm. Maybe what’s good about this is that sometimes you have to be in crisis to do the dramatic changes that are necessary.

Insights & Outlooks: SNHU is one of the fastest growing education providers in the United States, serving more than 90,000 online students. Tell us about what most excites you about this growth and your vision for where the university will go in the next five years.

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: We serve 135,000 learners of college age. Through our recent acquisition of LRNG, we will begin to serve another 50,000 pre-college learners—low-income youth, who are overwhelmingly students of color. But our goal is not just growth for growth’s sake, but to improve outcomes for these communities and to improve lives. Look at our partnership with Duet for example. They are a provider in the Boston area serving some of the poorest students in Boston. Students start at Duet using SNHU’s competency-based program with Duet’s wrap-around services. They arrive with incomes of about $14,000 and when they finish, they move in to somewhere around $30,000. That’s a game-changer. That may not be a huge income in America today, but we are moving the dial for them and putting them on a pathway towards work opportunities and lifelong learning.

For us, success is not about numerical growth, but about student success. Our goal is to grow at a pace where despite our scale, every individual student feels like they’re getting a highly personalized, highly supportive experience. For me, it’s about reaching as many learners as we can, without any slippage in quality. We are being very intentional about not thinking of ourselves only as a an “institution” with traditional boundaries, but a learning platform that reaches more emphatically upstream to pre-college learners and more emphatically downstream to post-college age learners.

We have to excel equally at meeting the needs of an 11th grader, working on a college degree, and a 65-year old formerly incarcerated adult working on a high school degree. Can we provide that whole breadth and break up the traditional sequencing of when learning happens? It depends, but we want to build a platform that gives learners just the right learning at just the right time, in just the right amount, in just the right way. That will sometimes be a degree, but it will sometimes be a micro credential; it might be a micromasters or it might be a badge; it might carry college credit, it might not; but in every instance, it has to improve their situation. It has to unlock an opportunity. That’s how we think about what we’re trying to build and this is not unique to us. I hear increasingly in the national discourse a conversation about how do we need to think about higher ed as an ecosystem or a platform and one that accommodates a greater variety of providers offering a greater range and granularity of credentials.

Insights & Outlooks: You spent time at the Department of Education shaping the federal government’s approach to innovation in postsecondary learning. Now, back in your role at SNHU, how are you hoping to continue those efforts and impact the national discourse around higher education policy?

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: The federal regulatory system prevents higher ed from being dramatically disrupted. If you take a look at what happened in music or journalism, those industries were disrupted overnight: they went over a cliff. That hasn’t happened in regulated industries like health care or education. So, some people find comfort in that and that it means that our industry is relatively insulated from disruptive change. It also buys us time, which is an advantage.  But, of course, that advantage is also a disadvantage, because that “protected” condition can squelch innovation and can fend off much needed change.

The regulatory framework for higher education is most driven by federal financial aid policy and rules.  

Title I and Title IV of the Higher Education Act have created a system built around the credit hour. The credit hour is good at telling you how long students sit, but it doesn’t truly measure student learning. I have a lot of hope around competency-based learning, but federal financial aid policy isn’t well built to accommodate that model. For example, while the rules allow direct assessment, which we do at SNHU, only a handful of schools have been authorized to use that approach given the complexity of aid administration.  All of the related rules— satisfactory academic progress, definitions of the academic year— are tethered to a time-based system ill-suited for a non-time based approach like direct assessment. So, I’m hoping that in the next re-authorization, we will see those tangled rules addressed.

Many regulations are also out of touch with technology and the way education happens. The glaring or startling example of this is the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General’s ruling on Western Governors University. WGU does great work and their teacher education program is one of the most highly ranked in the country. The OIG said that WGU was out of compliance with the regular and substantive interaction rule. That rule assumes a very traditional campus-based model: that students will be on campus, sitting with a faculty member, having an espresso, and talking about the meaning of life. That’s not reality for most of higher ed and in fact, we have powerful tools to support students online and offer more support than that romantic model posits. There’s a lot of energy, and appropriately so, around reinterpreting regular and substantive interaction. My hope is that in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, that we build regulation around transparency and outcomes. If the federal government and accreditors focus on demonstrable outcomes and transparency, institutions will then have to prove that they are providing or delivering on the promise they make to students. In that world, we could be much more agnostic about how students learn and then we open up the door for all kinds of transformational, new instructional models. It also protects against bad actors. Bad actors thrive in darkness, where they can hide from the realities of the outcomes they produce.

We need strong regulatory bodies, but they need to focus on the back end, not trying to anticipate what the future will look like because we can’t know. Title IV still talks about VHS tapes and microfiche, which is crazy! I would hope that at the state level, the federal level and with accreditors, we can get to a place where we create more safe spaces to attempt new approaches. Currently, institutions are heavily penalized when they try and fail. Inevitably, innovation involves making mistakes, but learning from them and improving based on the experience. We need to continue to provide protections for students, but also greatly expand the space for experimentation.

Insights & Outlooks: What are the three approaches that SNHU has pioneered through your programs that you think can be brought to scale with the support of federal policy?

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: Our direct assessment competency-based program is probably the most dramatic approach we’ve employed with implications for federal policy. I sometimes call it the Swiss army knife of curriculum– it’s very flexible and it can serve very different populations in very different ways. We’ve been in some of the hardest to work in places in the world: refugee camps and remote regions of the world like Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, and Lebanon. We partner with RISE High in Los Angeles to educate homeless kids and youth who have timed out of the foster care system. We’re using it with DACA students in the Rio Grande Valley.

It’s an incredibly flexible tool and that’s a real breakthrough. I’d love to see the regulatory environment changed so that we can scale and be more robust and deliver in more effective ways. I think that competencies will quickly become the unit of measurement for all of education.

What are the claims you make to prove student learning? This natural bridge or evolution from input to outcomes is through competencies. At a fundamental level, we need to spotlight not just what students learn, but what they can do with that learning. That’s profound because employers care about what our graduates can do. A transcript that includes a managerial accounting course enables employers to infer what a student knows, but they don’t quite know what students can do with that knowledge. When you talk about competencies and what students can do, that’s the language of the workforce. Right now, higher ed has a problem with workforce alignment. Competencies are a real breakthrough.

Data is another breakthrough. In every industry in the world, it seems data is transforming how we do work. I look at our data analytics team: we have 75 people on it, we measure everything. We learn a lot. It allows us to improve quality and it allows us to support students much more robustly. Think of the work that Mark Becker’s doing at Georgia State University, for example, using data around persistence and the way they’ve been able to move the dial on that. Look at at the work of a company like Civitas Learning, which is using data to help institutions measure the efficacy of all of their student success initiatives and to optimize student success. Simply put, data is a game changer.

Insights & Outlooks: Final question: is there a favorite podcast, show or a book that you’re enjoying now or recently and could you share with us why?

Paul LeBlanc, SNHU: I’ve been listening to the Masters of Scale podcast. In our strategic plan, we call for serving 300,000 students or more. I’m fascinated by how you scale and maintain quality and we think about this all the time. When people want to throw a rock in our direction, they’ll often say, “Well, you can’t be getting this big or you can’t be growing this fast and not compromising quality.” I always challenge people to come take a look to reassure themselves that we know how to do deliver on a mission to serve as many as possible while at the same time not just maintaining quality, but improving it. It’s really hard. We often learn more from other industries than we do from our own and this podcast has been informative..

Every industry is an echo chamber. We’re all reading the Chronicle, we’re all reading Inside Higher Ed, we’re all at the same conferences. We kind of know what’s going on by and large, but it’s fascinating to look at and learn from industries like healthcare. I just listened to the podcast with Danny Meyer, one of the great restauranteurs in America. I love, for example, the way he talks about the difference between service and hospitality. Service is what people pay for and expect. Hospitality is the unexpected “wow” moments– that you remembered my favorite cocktail before I even order or that you went out of the ordinary to do something for me. That’s memorable.

I sometimes ask my team: “Can we get to a place where every single semester, a student has a ‘take your breath away’ moment of learning?” That can be a student who gets to go study abroad from a small town in Maine or New Hampshire who had no idea the world was this big and different and complicated and it changes everything for them. It can also be an amazing instructor who helps a student find their calling the way I had a faculty member do for me. It can be a hands-on learning experience. It can be an internship.  Can create those moments that are life changing, that are so much more than the systems we create or the curriculum we create and build transformative experiences of education. How do we do that? How do we do it online? How do we do it for busy adults? How do we do it for 18-year olds living on campus? That’s a great challenge.

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[xoxo-anxciousanum]

Hey guys, so this is my third time writing this post! It never saved the first time for some reason and the second time my battery died, so here i am on my laptop! you can smell the determination right ahahahaha? 

Any who, I have finally left high school where i have been for the past six years of my life! On the Friday the 28th of April 2017, I finally said goodbye bishessss wee out! So im just going to use this post to recap on my fantastic, wild, journey through the years of high school at St Andrews Academy.

So where do I start! Well first and second year was a nightmare because I had came to a brand new school from where my old primary school friends went. Therefore i had ZERO  friends to keep me sane! im not going to ,ie but i definitely was bullied for at least the first three years of high school. It was a nightmare, because it didn't help that i had facial hair and a heavy mono brow! Maybe im just being a bit hard on myself but i definitely struggled, there was nights were all i cared about was peoples opinions and i didn't want to go in some days because i couldn't bare it! Finally in third year i felt a bit more comfortable cause we were finally put in set classes so my English class was great!  We had such a great time, and i met a lot of lovely girls.Fourth year was the first year that i was going to experience exams and i was sady still tormented by stupid pathetic bitchess that needed to get over themselves get a grip and move on! anways, moving onto the rollercoaster of a year- welcome to the year of mofo Highersssss!!! This is when shit got reallllllll. i finally had the confidence and I was loving lifeee but it was not really a year to realx with friends and chill. i HAD TO WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK WORK (In the humble word of rihannaaaa) Legit, was madness, but alhumdullilah, i made it in the end as i got my results in- 3As in Eglish, Biology and Geography and B in Chemsitry! Unfortunately Maths was a bit of a fail, but thnakfully i recived an offer from the uni so long as i achieved a B in Maths in sixth year as well as a nat 5 A in Physics! Inshallah i will acheive tht!!!!!!  I honestly learned a lot in that year as  i lso juggled out of school work through Ye where i strengthened bonds with the best peope ive met in my life. Genuinly learned sooooo many things about my self in that year- i am confident, i dont care what others think, and i can get whatever i want as long as i put my mind to it and not be tooo anxcious and worried. Anwhoooo i was defos eqipped for the last year of my high school life! I have never had such fun and made the msot incredible memories ever!!! i genuinly loved every minute becasue it was such a reaxed year, the amount of times i patched school and went on an adventure was crazy man ahahahah! incoming the rebellious anum husain ahahahahaha! made the most unforgettable memories that i will cherish forever, cant belive it all over! I still remember the day in primary when i was like how am i going to survive high school-with al the exams and changing classes every 50 minss! yet here i am! bishhhhhh we madeee itttttt yasssssssssssssssss.

Moving on, i have actually realised how much i love my cousins man. I genuinly dont know where id be without them. They amke my life so special and fun. Honestly if someone was to see our chats man, we’d be locked up ahahahahah! We legit talk about everything and anything, without judging each other. I love taht we can take the piss out of each other but stilll be the best of galsss man, we love winding up haiqa especially man its toooo funny! we are baesss for life and i truly mena it. The small things mean soo much to me, like going for walks randomly, going to morrions and buying crap loads of sweets then end up at tesco and cryinngg that we live in the most jakiest town ever!!!! I am certain that we will hare this beautiful journey together, through uni-eating lunch together and chillling in the sun. Man i cant wait!!!! im such a cheeeeeeesy gal man cause i cant wait to do couplyyy things when we get marruied man. like nandos, going bowing, movie nights etc it will be soooooooo amazing. Actaully never met anyone that has the same bond as us. Well we know two girls that think they do when i reality they see eachother like twice a year , so stfu. ahahahahahahahha im such a savage, but its true, we have such a unique bond, most people dont see their cousins, we are sisters!!!! we can annoy each other but we cant live without eachother! I love them milllllllllllllliiiiiiiooooooooonnnnnnnnssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!

Onto my amazing sisters! Where do i start, wel with one of them its a work in progress, its hard when she used to be mean to u and she chews loudly do u know, i have a lot of pettty ahtes so it made it worse, but its pending man fs. But for NAILAbae, she is a gemmmm! A diamond, we have been going out on trips to Glasgow since i was 6! we still carry this tradition on till now and im 18! whooooohoooooo, she is actualy the msot funniest person ever! she is sooo cute and i love her to bits! we have sooo much in common, we could literally chat for hours, she has helped me so much in school its unreal.SHE IS MY TRUE ROLE MODEL! i have always looked up to her from a young age, We tak about everything together, makeup, fashion,making fun of peple, blair and serena goals af!!!! im obvsss blair!!! Moving on to IMMYFATT!!! She is my fooood gal. we could literally go out and eat a samosa salad and get our eyebrows done, our insanely crazy eyebrows!! That would be our day out, but what make it fun, is the car journey nd the laughs we have together, before she waas married we used to always do duets in the car and record ourselves!! hahahahah we loved IF I WERE A BOY!!! Bey was my fav! we still sing now in the car and its the best! I love them milllions! I cant even begin to tell you how much i love my sis n law. Its so mad how she just appeared in my life and i love her millions.she is sooooo funny, cute and giry! She lets me borrow any of her make up which i think is sooooo cute man! she is such a princesss its amazing!!! Dont even get me started on my beautiful nephews and nieces!!!! i will love them allll forver! cant wait till i get my car and can take them out to the park!!! im such a cheeeesy gal but i love my fam! Ridah i such a smart coookie i cant wait till she takes over the world with her amazing presence! Zarish is an actual real life dolll its so funny she so cute and timid! i love her millions, the two boys AR and Eesa are just soooooo beaut!!! i love them with all my heart. I love that AR calls me ANNNNAAAAAAA. he is my babe! Eesa is changing everyday and i love him even more, cant wait till he grows up.

Roll on the next amazing years of my life!!!!! Roll on june 2017 (no longer in me mums car)Roll on september 2017!!! HWG WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO