Would You Like to See the Complete Cover?

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For those who are interested, here’s the full wraparound cover for the new version of Quality Education:

Cover design by Christopher Rinehart. (Click to enlarge.)

 

Of course, the wraparound will only be available on the print version.

If you are (or someone you know is) a parent, student, teacher, or administrator interested in improving not just individual classes and schools but helping the entire system operate at a high level, then this updated and completely restructured edition of Quality Education might interest you. Stay tuned for more information — the release is imminent!

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Monday Morning Insight: Choosing Our Plan of Life

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

For no other reason than that I like the quote, here are some words from John Stuart Mill — from On Liberty — to consider this morning:

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.

Every day we have opportunity to choose our “plan of life,” even if only for that day. And we have it in our power to observe, to think and judge, to consider, to decide, and finally to act on the basis of that decision.

When we cede that power to others, when we allow them to choose our plan for us, we diminish ourselves.

Resolute

(Image: “Resolute,” by Kenoi Cabral, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

I hope you will find truth and courage as you choose and implement the plan of your life.

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Thankful for All the Nouns

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Good Thanksgiving morning to you and yours!

Every day I try to find things to be thankful for, but I’m glad our nation sets aside a special day for expressing thankfulness. In the spirit of the day, I sat down this morning to make a list of things for which I’m thankful, and realized that I could work for hours if not days trying to remember every individual person, place, or thing for which I could rightly say, “Thank you.”

I would never run out of nouns, and so I’d never run out of thanks.

I hope you can say the same.

Thanking God, 2016

(Image: “Thanking God, 2016,” by Martin LaBar, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I’m thankful for you — and I hope you have a fantastic day!

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Monday Morning Insight: Service as Gratitude

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., so I thought this Benjamin Franklin quotation about gratitude might be appropriate for this Monday morning:

When I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying debts. I have received much kindness from men to whom I shall never have an opportunity of making the least direct returns; and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. Those kindnesses from men I can, therefore, only return on their fellow-men, and I can only show my gratitude for those mercies from God by a readiness to help His other children.

I hope you have opportunity to be thankful — today, on Thanksgiving, and every day. And if you choose to demonstrate your gratitude by serving someone else, whether in a grand gesture or a very small way, I hope it brings you joy and peace to have done a little good in this world.

Gratitude Road

There’s a road by this name in Bristol, UK, but it’s not a bad address for all of us, every day. (Image: “Gratitude Road,” by Bart Maguire, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

As always, I thank you for your time and your attention. I wish you well.

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Monday Morning Insight: Fanfare

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

Today is U.S. composer Aaron Copland’s birthday (14 November 1900 – 2 December 1990). One of his most famous compositions was the “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which I first encountered when Emerson, Lake and Palmer recorded a version of it. It’s still one of my favorite pieces of music.

I found this Copland quote, and I like it very much:

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it.

Do you agree? I might delete the phrase “on this planet,” but otherwise I think he was right.

Do you find that “music in some living form” accompanies you during your days? Hardly a day goes by that I do not find a song in my head — and yes, sometimes one stays a bit too long.

Often, when all else is quiet, I compose and hum little snippets of music as I go about other chores, whether washing dishes or raking leaves or whatever. Sometimes I’ll stop and repeat those musical phrases a few times and think, “I should record that,” but I rarely do. I’ve come to appreciate those little interludes, and I think maybe God smiles at me during those moments when only He hears the little tunes.

Music guitar

(Image: “Music, guitar,” by Doug Wheller, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

Thanks for spending a little time with me, and whatever you do this week, I hope some music will accompany you!

___
P.S. Shameless plug: If you’re new here and don’t know about my music, please check out my Distorted Vision and Truths and Lies and Make-Believe albums.

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A Wish, in Iambic Pentameter

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I wrote this quatrain on Tuesday evening, before the election results were known, because I knew whatever the result many people would blow up in either indignation or celebration and, as a consequence, drive even bigger wedges between us. I shared the little verse on the Book of Faces, and thought I’d inscribe it (virtually, that is) here as well:

I Wish …

That we might preen and posture somewhat less,
Account ourselves without regard to pride,
Fret not upon disaster or distress –
A humble, hopeful star our constant guide.

(Image: “Wish,” by Jessica Tam, on Wikimedia Commons.)

 

And as always, I wish you the best.

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Cover Reveal for the New Edition of ‘Quality Education’

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I shared this with my newsletter subscribers a couple of weeks ago,* but here’s the cover to the completely revised and updated edition of Quality Education, which will be available as soon as we work out a few last details.

Cover design by Christopher Rinehart. (Click for larger image.)

 

The full title of the book is Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It, and it’s updated and completely restructured from the original edition. That version was published in the early 1990s by the American Society for Quality Control, and was one of the first books to apply the organizational and operational principles of continual improvement to the educational system.

The book presents education as a transformative process and covers expectations, roles, and inhibiting factors for parents, students, teachers, and administrators. With special emphasis on the quality philosophy of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the text adapts Deming’s systems flowchart, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and “14 Points” to the problems and processes of education.

The book also examines education’s customers, differing definitions of quality with respect to education, and the failure of well-intentioned reform efforts such as the “National Education Goals” (also known as “Goals 2000”) of the late 1980s. It includes chapters on programs for gifted and talented students, values education, and curriculum and other standards, and presents strategy ideas and discusses leadership required to develop and sustain quality education.

As we get closer to releasing the final version into the world, I’ll post updates!

___
*Yes, if you subscribe to my newsletter you will get news like this before anyone else, too.

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Monday Morning Insight: My Country, Right or Wrong

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

Since the week starts with Election Day Eve, I thought this 1872 quote from U.S. Senator Carl Schurz (2 March 1829 – 14 May 1906) would be appropriate:

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

When we vote, we either vote to keep the country right or to set the country right. It depends on our point of view, whether we think the country is or isn’t moving in the right direction.

But the work goes on after we vote, too.

(Image: “2016,” by Gordon Johnson, on Pixabay under Creative Commons.)

 

Every day we have the chance to keep our little corner of the country right, or to set it right if it begins to go wrong. It’s harder work than voting (when we vote, we delegate the work to others), but it’s more direct.

And if more of us did the work, it would be far more effective.

The trouble is, recently so many people have put so much effort into tearing down each other, a lot of work needs to be done no matter who wins the election. I hope we’re up to it.

But, have a great week, no matter what happens tomorrow!

___
P.S. Don’t forget, if you’re not already sure who you want to vote for, you’re welcome to write in yours truly for any office, anywhere.

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Monday Morning Insight: A Ghost’s Report

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

 

Hey, it’s Halloween, so why not start the week with a famous report from a well-known ghost (not the Gray Man)? Briefly released from Purgatory to walk the earth, this ghost said,

… I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotty and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.

Many readers will recognize the source: Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.

The old haunted abbey - Whitby.

(Image: “The old haunted abbey – Whitby,” by Darren Flinders, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

 

I hope you survive the horrors of the day — that they don’t harrow your soul or freeze your blood or make your hair stand on end — and that you have an awesome week!

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Third-Party Voting, and Baseball

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Or, more precisely, third-party voting and the World Series.

I get it: a lot of us are sick of politics, and in particular of one or the other or both of the major party candidates. As a result, many of us who would normally vote along with one of the major parties are thinking and talking about voting for a third-party candidate.

I’m not sure I can do that.

The way I see it, a usually reliably major-party voter opting for a third-party candidate is equivalent to pulling for the White Sox or the Reds in this year’s World Series.

(In case you missed last night’s Game 1, or you’re not much of a sports fan, only the Cubs and the Indians are actually playing in the Series.)

In other words, I feel that if I voted third-party, it would be like cheering for a team — any team — that’s not even on the field. It certainly wouldn’t be cheering on the winner, helping them to victory, and it wouldn’t even effectively be cheering against whichever of the two teams I’d rather see lose.

Image: “The great national game — last match of the season to be decided Nov. 11th 1884.” Macbrair & Sons Lithograph, from the Library of Congress online collection, showing “a sandlot baseball game of presidential hopefuls with James G. Blaine pitching to Chester A. Arthur, with Samuel J. Tilden behind the plate and Roscoe Conkling as umpire, at first base is Benjamin F. Butler with a handgun in his belt, at second base is John A. Logan holding Ulysses S. Grant close to the bag, at shortstop is John Kelly, and at third base is Sereno E. Payne, in left field is John Sherman and in centerfield is Samuel J. Randall. They are playing on a field labeled “Potomac Flats” with the Potomac River in the background.” (Click here for a larger image.)

 

Maybe your third-party vote is more clear-cut. Maybe you believe in the values represented by the Libertarian Party or the Green Party or whatever, and consider yourself affiliated with them. Maybe you’re an Independent, and have no history with either the Democrats or the Republicans (and certainly no loyalty to either). If so, more power to you on your third-party selection.

But maybe, like me, you usually vote for a particular party. (If it matters that you know, I usually vote primarily Republican, though I don’t recall ever voting a straight ticket.) And since I usually ally with one of the major parties, I see voting third-party as a de-facto vote against my usual party.

If I vote third-party, it will not send any kind of message to the Republican leadership. It might clear my conscience or assuage my guilt by giving me the ability to say “I didn’t vote for X” when they try to implement some ill-considered policy. (Talk about self-interest in politics. I could achieve the same result by simply not voting.)

Heinlein had it right when he pointed out that if we have nothing or no one we want to vote for we can surely find something to vote against. Voting third-party may feel good, as if I’m voting against both of the major parties, but it seems like a damn ineffective way of doing so because it cannot prevent the side I find most disagreeable from winning.

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