Get Funny

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal - Mar 30, 2011


“I am too serious.”

That was the answer I got when I asked “Connie” why she was signing up for Get Funny, one of our Ed2Go online courses offered through Club Ed. Over the years hundreds of students have taken every online course from Grantwriting to Creating Web Pages, but this was the first time anyone signed up for Get Funny.

“My job doesn’t require me to be humorous,” Connie explained. “It’s just that I love it when other people are funny. I always wonder ‘how do you do that?’ So I just decided I want to be funnier in everyday life.”

So how does a layperson learn to be funny?

The course description reads:
Humor enhances everything you do, no matter whether you're looking to deliver better presentations, increase your marketability as a writer, deliver more hits to a Web site, or simply become friendlier and more outgoing. Whether you're naturally funny or want to be, this hilarious course will help you sharpen your wit.

It turns out that learning to be funny is hard work. Get Funny starts by tracing comedy’s roots back to the ancient Egyptians.

Then students actually study the different types of humor: slapstick, observational, exaggeration, and innuendo. The course finishes with opportunities to perform improvisation with guidance on how to apply humor to your everyday life.

Students have to learn to observe and break down situations that occur day to day - mining them as sources of humor. One lesson is on how to construct a joke; another is on preparing a script for a situation comedy.

Connie has seen firsthand what it means to add a chuckle to other people’s lives. She had an experience at a previous job, with a boss who was “that kind of funny.” He would do the unexpected, like pulling out a Costco card to pay for a fancy dinner. “It was silly stuff that you would chuckle at,” she said.

Connie learned her boss was not always so glib. Turns out he used to have an anger problem. “At one point in his life he was so serious, he would get mad when things wouldn’t work out like he wanted. He decided he would stop that and try to instead find the humor in his life.”

She decided she wanted to be like that guy - “someone you wanted to be around.”

Of course Connie has no anger or stress issues - the girl just wants to have fun.

“I feel really good about my life right now,” she said simply. “I want to make it more fun for other people.”

xxx

For information or to sign up for online courses, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Plan now to get your summer kids activity in Hill Country Kids!

Get back what you give

Sid Hurlbert - www.sidhurlbert.com

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal Mar 23, 2011



Doggone you, Sid Hurlbert! Your seminar nearly killed me.

I went to one of the local motivational speaker’s two-hour workshops last fall. It was all about using his five STEPS to improve relationships and customer service.

The key point is that you get back exactly what you give out, no matter which side of the customer/ service relationship you are on.

That evening I had the perfect laboratory to try out my new people skills, which mainly consisted of smiling at everyone. I went to the local county fair.

Now I consider myself more of an introvert - my wife thinks I’m antisocial - so this was new territory for me.

Well, I sauntered on to the fairgrounds, armed with a smile and a new attitude. I was not prepared for what happened.

First, a slightly familiar young man came charging up to shake hands and slap me on the back. I stared in bewilderment, until I remembered him as an old basketball adversary. And I do mean adversary. We had exchanged words and could not stand each other either as foes or teammates. Now it turned out he was a neighbor and saw me all the time on my bike. So we chatted like girls in a grocery store, until I was interrupted by a former bandmate and his wife. After exchanging war stories, a young lady hollered at me and wanted to talk about my family.

I was in a maelstrom of camaraderie, an uncharted and dangerous land. A business associate with whom I had had disagreements approached. I knew this would be the end of my noble experiment. Instead, he asked sweetly if I would mind sharing copies of some photos I was snapping.

As I nodded dumbly, another young man came along, and stuck out his hand, introducing himself as a boy I used to know who was now a man just out of a military academy, along with his new wife. It went on like that for three hours.

But the best was when a total stranger - an older woman - yelled at me from her bench and said, “I recognize you from the newspaper.” Turned out she was also a writer, and we talked about Texas, history, and life. She was with her 80-something retired rancher husband, whom she described as “a hermit” who thought Doss was too crowded. At first he stared sullenly off into the crowd, but when he realized I was “giving out what I wanted back” he started sharing tales of his life on the frontier. After 45 minutes she was trying to pull him out the gate, but he wouldn’t stop talking. This new skill was powerful... and wearing me out.

It never stopped. I was besieged by new best friends. I was surrounded by young ladies, bowling buddies, former bandmates, and people from 30 years in my past. I finally had enough. I started frowning and fled! Being popular is exhausting.

Sid Hurlbert, you need to add a disclaimer to your seminar. For us introverts, smiling is a dangerous weapon. Use it wisely and rarely.

xxx

For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Summer is coming! If you offer an activity or camp for kids, put it in our Hill Country Kids catalog of great things to do. Email club.ed@kerrvilleisd.net or call 830-895-4386.

Love the dog you’re with

by Phil Houseal as published in The Community Journal (Kerrville TX) Mar 16, 201

PHOTO:
Sharon Griswold - the Dog Lady - helps people understand their pets.


Everyone calls her the “Dog Lady,” but Sharon Griswold is really a people person.

That’s because the owner of Rover Misbehaving recognizes that dogs are pack animals, and their human owners are part of the pack.

“The biggest thing I do is try to make the partnership between the person and dog,” Griswold said. “Often owners don’t realize they are fighting their dog. Love, leadership, and respect are what I am working for.”

Her strategy is to make humans think more as a dog thinks. Viewing a situation from the animal’s perspective changes the approach to training. For example, when teaching the “sit” command, many owners jerk back on the leash. In the dog’s mind, that is correction. Instead, Griswold recommends lifting the dog’s head with gentle pressure, placing a treat just above the dog’s nose. As soon as the head tips up, the fanny hits the floor. Add the verbal command “sit” and you’ve just trained your pet.

“Most people are too rough on the leash, and too rough on the voice,” Griswold noted. “The animal does not understand what is wanted. So we break down the exercise we want into little steps. That way the owner understands how to teach, and the dog understands what is being asked.”

Griswold has developed her technique over 35 years. She started out wanting to become a veterinarian, and ended up with a degree in agriculture. For four years she worked for Seeing Eye - the oldest dog guide school in the world - training guide dogs as well as teaching the visually impaired clients how to use them.

The crux of Seeing Eye training is “obedient disobedience.”

“That means you tell the dog to do something, and if they see it is incorrect, they have to decide to do what’s right.” The example is if the owner is telling the dog to go forward, but the dog sees a truck blocking the way, the dog must make the decision to “disobey” the command and lead the owner safely around the obstacle. “We train the dogs to think,” Griswold explained.

Griswold is an advocate of starting right at the puppy stage by helping them social as well as play games that introduce basic commands. But she also holds out hope for owners of older dogs, claiming that you really can teach them new tricks.

She shared a story of a couple that brought their 13-year-old dog to class. The dog had been tied to a tree its entire life, never trained or housebroken. After her obedience training, the dog went on to live another three years inside the house.

“The couple wrote to me after their pet died,” she said. “They told me had they known what a great dog they had they would have brought him inside 16 years ago.”

That kind of story contains the whole purpose of Griswold’s classes. They are all about respect, kindness, and building a partnership between owner and pet.

“By doing these classes, you create more of a bond and enjoy your dog more. It is all about teaching people to respect their dog, and teaching the dog to respect the person,” Griswold said. “My job is to make people appreciate their animals more - and to appreciate the dog that you have.”

xxx

Sharon Griswold (www.rovermisbehaving.com) will teach a new set of Puppy Kindergarten and K-9 Manners beginning in April. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Summer is coming! If you offer an activity or camp for kids, put it in our Hill Country Kids catalog of great things to do. Email club.ed@kerrvilleisd.net or call 830-895-4386.

Feedback

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal Mar 9, 2011



I never tire of bragging about Club Ed. So this week I decided to do something different. I dug through our evaluations to let our students brag instead.

Every single student in every single class receives a simple Evaluation form. They are invited to answer two questions: 1) What did you like most? 2) What could we improve? (We also have them draw smiley - or frowny - faces for quick feedback.)

The responses are always interesting.

Some are concise:
“Great Class! Great Price! Great Teacher”

“I enjoyed the presentation - fast-paced, packed with information that was very useful.”

"FUN, FUN, FUN!!"

Some embarrass us:
"You have hit a home run with this catalog. I haven't heard of any program like this anywhere in the country!"

Many are grateful:
"Easy to understand for us technically challenged types."

Sometimes grateful beyond the normal classroom relationship:
"Great teacher - he's adorable!"

"Marsha, I'll follow you anywhere!"

One student wrote a three-page letter extolling the virtues of her instructor. That made us a little nervous.

Some are bald-faced lies:
“After taking dulcimer, my family is very encouraging and likes to listen to me practice.”

Many evaluations are uplifting:
"Grinning from ear to ear!!!"

"My husband agreed to take this class as a favor to me. He ended up enjoying it more than I and he ever expected."

"Great quality time together away from the kids!"

"If you can't learn to dance with this instructor, it's impossible!

Some we just don’t understand:

"This is where I wanted to be - learning the mouse as if I was 5 years old at St. Peters School."

Some are profound:

“Found my inner self from hypnosis techniques.”

Some are just weird:

“Experience time through geology! Feel young through geological time! I'll never look at a rock the same way again!"

We even had one from French theologian John Calvin:
“While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.”

Oh, it’s not all peaches and cream. We’ve had our share of negative reviews:

"Probably could be longer and with padded chairs!"

One lady sent me a handwritten letter complaining about finding a cigarette butt on the floor - she even taped the butt to her letter!

Some of these negative feedback courses hold the most interest to us. One bus tour was such a comedy of errors - late departure, missed connection, squeaky wheel bearings, extortionist driver - that half the group wrote full page letters complaining. What was fascinating were those who turned in smiley faces and said it was a great experience and the driver did “a super job!” You have to wonder if they were actually on the same bus.

My favorite complaint story was the recent Hill Country transplant who stormed out of a class within the first 20 minutes. She stood in our lobby and ran down the litany of how the instructor was ill-informed, confrontational, meandering, unprepared, and just rude. We of course refunded her money and thanked her - for we really do want to hear how to improve our courses.

The lady sat down and was still in our lobby an hour later. I politely informed her that she did not have to wait around - her money would be refunded automatically.

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” she replied. “I have to wait because my husband is in there and he loves this class.”

Another student signed up for three writing courses. The next day she called to excoriate the instructor, telling me the day was “a disappointment.” The first class was “a lie,” and that the materials were filled with grammatical errors and redundancies.

I humbly asked why, if she so detested the first class, she stayed and signed up for classes two and three. Her answer: “I just kept thinking it would get better.”

But even the rare negative ones hold a grain of fun:
“I have one complaint about your Spanish class... that I didn’t learn about it sooner!”

We love to hear every type of feedback. But we especially love this kind:
“This is my first class with Club Ed, but it won’t be my last.”

xxx

Summer is coming! If you offer an activity or camp for kids, put it in our Hill Country Kids catalog of great things to do. For information or to sign up for a class, email club.ed@kerrvilleisd.net, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Safety first

by Phil Houseal, Mar 2, 2011 - Kerrville TX Community Journal


No one expects to find themselves in a life-threatening situation. But students who take the Texas Concealed Handgun License (CHL) course will be better prepared if it should ever happen.

Club Ed is offering seven CHL courses this spring in Boerne and Mountain Home, and every one is filled or nearly filled.

The popularity seems to be a national phenomenon - the shooting sports are among the fastest growing sports among all ages, backgrounds, and both sexes. More Americans now spend more on shooting sports than golf.

Larry Arnold teaches the Kerrville course, along with Hunter Education. Arnold has been a firearms enthusiast since he was a boy, introduced to gun safety and instructed by his father, a decorated war veteran. He began teaching the CHL course from the first day the Texas law authorized it in 1995.

“The only thing I love more than shooting is teaching others how to shoot,” he said.

It may come as a surprise to those who have not taken the CHL course how much time is spent learning ways to avoid resorting to using the firearm.

“First we teach safety, and we always teach safety when talking about firearms,” Arnold said. “We learn the laws of self-defense; what you can and cannot do to protect yourself.”

Students in the course also learn nonviolent conflict resolution.

“If you are in a situation you can keep under control, we teach ways to do that,” he said. “Pulling out your gun is the last resort.”

But trained students who find themselves in a “last resort” situation will be prepared. “The whole point of this training is to protect yourself and other innocents.”

Arnold notes that much of the training focuses on helping people overcome their fear of firearms. This is a common thread in lifelong learning where students also come in with fears about using computers, learning to dance, or raising tomatoes. That is why the course includes information on how to choose a gun, discussion of the different types and sizes of guns, gun safety and storage, culminating with time on the range actually learning to shoot at targets.

Arnold knows firsthand the importance of the training he teaches, as he has found himself in several situations when he used it.

“I have been close, but none got that serious,” he said. “In those situations I was glad I was carrying, and it made me more comfortable doing the nonviolent conflict resolution, and knowing I could do something rather than being helpless.”

XXX

Club Ed offers Texas Concealed Handgun Course twice monthly, once at the Buck and Bull Club near Mountain Home, and once at Boerne, with instructor Don White. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.