Nathan Branson

The Reasons People Give for Not Attending Their High School Reunion

A Reflection on My High School Reunion

"Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.” - Baz Luhrman

In the winter of 2012, the announcement was made that my 10 year high school reunion for the class of 2002 would be a joint reunion with the class of 2003. The East . . .

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May 10, 2016

5 Quotes on Distraction and Multitasking

Nicholas Carr on multitasking:

"The problem today is not that we multitask. We’ve always multitasked. The problem is that we’re always in multitasking mode. The natural busyness of our lives is being amplified by the networked gadgets that constantly send us messages and alerts, bombard us with other bits of important and . . .

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April 30, 2016

Do college students need church?

We should not underestimate the mentoring that churches provide to the stressed out college student.

As a community college English instructor, I often hear conversations about what we can do to help students graduate. We want students to complete their degrees as efficiently as possible so they can move on to a four-year university or immediately into their career path. Educators today are skilled at helping students gain work ethic, . . .

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April 03, 2016

Two Questions: How does a person develop a good work ethic?

Question #1: Who taught you how to work hard?

I’ll first off tell a story about how my friend John helped teach me what it means to have a work ethic. From the time I was 15 years old, in the summer and after school, I worked at Branson’s Auto Service. I was the tire guy/stock-room organizer. The auto shop had a small split level . . .

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March 17, 2016

The North Carolina State Motto: One Reason I Became a Christian

During my senior year of high school that I achieved the goal of becoming semi-popular. High school is more like a hierarchy than a democracy. My senior year I had tasted what it felt like to be near the top of that hierarchy. Some of it conscious and some of it unconscious, I had struggled for three years of high school to be admired by . . .

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February 13, 2016

Where is the Heart in my "Critical Thinking" Textbook?

Humans are more than "Brains on A Stick"

Two years ago I was asked to teach a critical thinking class at the community college. This class focused on logical fallacies, being objective in thought, recognizing stereotypes and finding methods to think less impulsively and more thoughtfully. I had never taught a humanities class, so this was exciting for me. The best definition of what . . .

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January 29, 2016

Taylor Mali's Reasons Why It Has Become Uncool to Sound like you Know What You are Talking About

The Consequences of Repetitively using "Like" and "Ya Know What I'm Saying"

"It has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you are talking about" is the opening line to a short Youtube video (with nearly 2 million hits). I've shown this Taylor Mali speech to over 20 sections of English composition over the last 3 years. That is, I show it to all my composition classes. This semester I showed . . .

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December 31, 2015

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