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Old 5th March 2009, 06:29 AM   #1
Dancing David
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Blueberries

We can not return the children we don't like, we have to work with them as they are!

a few inspiring words, enjoy

http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberry_story.html

The Blueberry Story: The teacher gives the businessman a lesson

“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! 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.
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Old 5th March 2009, 02:18 PM   #2
jj
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Well, David, she has a point, in my experience, the schools often cook the good blueberries just to make them fit in with the spoiled ones.
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Old 5th March 2009, 08:58 PM   #3
Dancing David
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The point is we can't can't ship em back, we have to take them as they are.

My point is that schools are expected to dal with the consequences of what happens outside teh school, you can't just cook em up with sugar and puree them. And you can't use artificial falvors either.

I have to interact with students and you have to treat them all as individuals. And some times the 'good' ones are as much of a behavior problem as the 'bad' ones.
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Old 5th March 2009, 11:47 PM   #4
jj
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Originally Posted by Dancing David View Post
The point is we can't can't ship em back, we have to take them as they are.
Indeed.
Quote:

My point is that schools are expected to dal with the consequences of what happens outside teh school, you can't just cook em up with sugar and puree them. And you can't use artificial falvors either.
Well, one could argue ritalin might be an "artificial flavor", but yeah, sorta.
Quote:

I have to interact with students and you have to treat them all as individuals. And some times the 'good' ones are as much of a behavior problem as the 'bad' ones.
Yes, bored students are often quite a pain. Some smart kids are, of course, trouble, as well in other respects.
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Old 6th March 2009, 06:02 AM   #5
Dancing David
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Nope, I mean disrespect, disruption and bullying.

Being frustrated because you have a learning disability is not an excuse, nor is being bored because you have been told by your parents that you are special and the rules don't apply to you.
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Old 6th March 2009, 11:29 AM   #6
jj
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Originally Posted by Dancing David View Post
Nope, I mean disrespect, disruption and bullying.

Being frustrated because you have a learning disability is not an excuse, nor is being bored because you have been told by your parents that you are special and the rules don't apply to you.
Agreed. No segment of the population is immune to bad behavior.

On the other hand, blaming the parents is getting to be an epidemic. Apparently parents aren't supposed to teach their kids math nowdays, they might "confuse" them. This, of course, in a trig course that barely introduces the unit circle and has yet to introduce Euler identities.

Yeah, I'd confuse something, alright... Not the kid...
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