[Ansteorra] Teahcers' Day-rant

[DonnelShaw at aol.com]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
I debated on sending this but have decieded  that all would enjoy it.

Donnel Shaw
PreKindergarten Public schools 12years certified Early Childhood Teacher



> THE BLUEBERRY STORY: Teacher Gives
>
>   Businessman a Lesson
>
> Written by Jamie Robert Vollmer
>
> "If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't
> be in business very long!"
>
> I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were
> becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their
> precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had  turned to
> restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.
> I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public
> schools.
>
> I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the
> middle1980s when People Magazine chose our blueberry as the "Best Ice Cream
> in America."
>  
> I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they
> were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial
> age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society".
>
> Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change,
> hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by
> a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to
> business.
>
> We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!
> In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced - equal parts ignorance
> and arrogance.
>
> As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite,
> pleasant -- she was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English
> teacher who had been waiting to unload. She began quietly,
> "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."  I
> smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, Ma'am."
> "How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"  "Sixteen percent
> butterfat," I crowed.  "Premium ingredients?" she inquired.
> "Super-premium! Nothing but triple A." I was on a roll. I never saw the
> next line coming. "Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a   wicked
> eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock
> and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"  
> In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap
> snap.. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie. "I send them back."
>   "That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries.
> "We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused,
> frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with
> ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language.
> "We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a
> business. It's school!"
>
> In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides,
> custodians and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah!
> Blueberries! Yeah!  Blueberries!"
>
>   And so began my long transformation. Since then, I have visited hundreds
> of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are
> unable to control the quality of their raw material, they
> are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream,
> and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing
> customer groups that would send the best CEO
> screaming into the night. None of this negates the need for change. We must
> change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum
> opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do
> this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust,
> permission and active support of the surrounding community.
>  
> For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the
> attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore,
> to improve public education means more than changing
> our schools, it means changing America.
> SEND THIS TO A TEACHER!
>
>   Better yet:
> SEND THIS TO A BUSINESS MAN OR WOMAN
>
>
>