Skip to main content

Don't Be Complicit

I'm enjoying winter break. It's given me time to catch up with friends and family and plenty of time to read. One of my bosses and I have been working through Tim Ferris' newest, Tools of Titans. By no means do I ever want to start a business, but I find the three-to-four page entries easily digestible and enlightening. What Ferris has done here is distill his interviews with so many successful people into small write-ups. I'm only halfway through, but I've found my to-read list growing at a high rate, and many quotes force me to stop and think.

During the chapter with Phil Libin, the co-founder of Evernote, Tim Ferris shares this advice from Jerry Colonna: "How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?"

I'm very fortunate to work in a building with supportive colleagues and bosses, but I think of this quotation and how applicable it is to so many people that I know, especially those in education. Find ways to take a stand. Find ways to make real and lasting change. Things don't always have to be the way they are.

I still have to finish reading for some leadership professional development that I'm participating in this school year. This quote is one that I am definitely saving.

Comments

  1. Joy KirrDecember 30, 2016 at 4:29 AM

    Kevin, thanks for this quick post. Your quote reminds me of Rick Wormeli, when he came to our district - "To what degree will you allow your colleagues to keep doing what they're doing, even if you think it is not right?" My thoughts, reactions, and plans for moving forward from that are here: http://geniushour.blogspot.com/2014/02/stepping-it-up-notch.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Handwritten Cue Cards in the 21st Century

I just stumbled upon this behind-the-scenes clip of Saturday Night Live's cue card process. This is intense writing. This is writing that is dependent upon trust and checks and balances. Over a short period of time, skits are written, drafted on cards, revised, and the cards revised over and over again. I also really love that SNL continues to use cue cards and not a teleprompter. Like Wally points out, technology can fail. Handwritten cue cards ensure the show goes on. Comedy is hard work. Writing is hard work. Changes are made up until the last minute to get things just right. This is a form of real-world writing.
1 comment
Read more

Six Things to Keep in Mind When Your Class is NaNo-ing

Students recently drafted their reflections about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so I wrote beside them about the lessons that I had learned. Here they are: Limit the other work you give . While you may feel the pressure to have copious assignments in your grade book (there tends to be a sort of teacher shaming if you don't have many assignments in, as if there is a magical number), you have to recognize what is valuable and what is not, especially during the 30-day writing frenzy that NaNoWriMo is. I tried to make every assignment relevant for the month and their novels. Students encountered "daily challenges" (these quickly turned into every-other-day challenges) that focused on many of the necessary elements to good novels: dialogue, story world development, character creation, subplots, etc. Everything was designed so that students could use their work in their novels, and it allowed me to have short glimpses of the types of things they were writing abo
1 comment
Read more

Past Secretaries of Education

After last night's hearing with nominee DeVos, I decided to research past education secretaries. Senator Alexander talked a lot about "precedent" when it came to procedures regarding the HELP Committee. Let us remember that the first education secretary was appointed in 1979. That's the same year that Congress created the department under Jimmy Carter. This is also the same department that Ronald Reagan promised to abolish. Even the first education secretary had experience in government. Shirley M. Hufstedler was both a federal and state appeals court judge. I'm going to say that because of that experience, she's probably familiar with law and how laws work. As we saw last night, when Betsy DeVos was redirected a question because her answer implied that states could choose to implement federal law or not, she might need a refresher. Then we had Terrel Bell, who was a high school teacher, bus driver, and served in the Marines. Again, a long list of public
2 comments
Read more