Educational Quotes 5: Leadership and Teamwork

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'You can't blow an uncertain trumpet' Mark Twain


Imposed bureaucratic 'top down' changes have resulted in school being 'over managed and under led.' Now is the time for courageous leaders, at all levels, to emerge and add their 'voices' to the debate. There are no experts with 'the answer' - we will have to invent the future ourselves together as we go along.
 
Shared leadership... is less like a an orchestra, where the conductor is always in charge, and more like a jazz band, where leadership is passed around ... depending on what the music demands at the moment and who feels most moved by the spirit to express the music.' Schlechy 2001
 
'Leaders... will be explorers, adventurers, trailblazers... leaders of leaders... They will gather around them people who have the future in their bones.' Rowan Gibson 'Re Thinking the Future.'
 
'The key to leadership is having people willing to follow you if only out curiosity to see what's going to happen.' Marc Anderson Founder of Netscape
 
'Systems of schooling are over managed and under led'. Thomas Sergiovanni
 
'We need to decide whether to give full service or lip service.' Peter Block
 
'My friends, you never need to bow to no one' Gandalf to the Hobbits
 
(In schools) 'There is an emphasis on doing things right rather on doing the right things.' Thomas Sergiovanni
 
'It is hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp when you are up to your backside in crocodiles.' Saying
 
'The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak..' Dag Hammarskjold UN
 
'Comparison, a great teacher told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.' Jim Collins, Author 'Built to Last'
 
'Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.' Buddha 53 BC -483 BC
 
'Self doubt combined with dignity is central to competent leadership... ( a leader)is able to recognize when he... is on the wrong track and perhaps identify the error by giving in to the need for complete reevaluation.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards.
 
'The essence of good strategy is what has always been - insecurity and uncertainty.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards
 
'There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting.' Buddna
 
' the challenge ( for leadership) is to initiate a conversation about what's purpose and what's just practice. Preserve the best, reinvent the rest'... Hold your company hostage, declare your vision in a public way... Make decisions right or wrong .There is nothing worse than waffling'. Keith Yamashira US Business Consultant
 
'Education can change culture but only in so far as educators are transformed.' Parent School Board USA
 
'My job is creating an environment where teachers continually learn'. US Innovative Principal
 
'The question of 'How?' - more than any other question - looks for answers outside of us. It is an individual expression of our doubt.' Peter Block Business Philosopher
 
'Choosing to act on what matters is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything but controlled and predictable.' Peter Block Author 'Stewardship.'
 
'Leadership is a personal quest you undertake, based on mission that troubles your heart.' Harriet Rubin. 'Fast Company' Writer
 
'We have all worked with people who are entirely lacking in energy or are the walking black holes of human existence; they suck energy out of whoever they walk into. So the litmus test for all of is, 'Do I generate more energy when I walk into a room or when I walk out of it?'' Steve Farber, President of Extreme Leadership
 
'I think it is important for leaders to answer the question 'What's exciting about the work I /we really do here?' ..to expand it out to the higher meaning and purpose... To really articulate what we really do here, and why this place is cool.'' Steve Farber , President 'Extreme Leadership'.
 
'Leadership is a scary thing. That's why few people want to stand up to the plate.'... 'There are many people who want to be matadors, only to find themselves in the ring with 2,000 pounds of bull bearing down on them, and then discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight pants and hear the crowd roar' Steve Farber.
 
'Good directors, playwrights and leaders are enablers who make it possible for others to succeed by providing the means and opportunities for actions.' Anon
 
'Faced with the choice of buckling under by complying or 'doing a bit of rule bending' successful leaders get on with the latter.' Thomas Sergiovanni
 
'To be a leader is to be awake and alert, to be dissatisfied at all times.' Peter Koestenbaum Philosopher
 
'Remember a dead fish can float downstream but it takes a live one to swim upstream'. W C Fields
 
'It is easier to follow the leader than to lead the follower.' Anon
 
'All bottlenecks occur at the top.' Anon
 
'Be who you are
and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.' Dr Suess

'Leaders are 'canny outlaws', system benders, creative and responsible rule benders. They have to succeed because... the deck is stacked against creative, imaginative and entrepreneurial teachers.' Thomas Sergiovanni
 
'Most of what institutional leadership does today comes from what they thought we wanted and needed yesterday.' Peter Block, Author 'The Answer to How is Yes'.
 
'Win small, win early, win often.' Gary Hamel Leadership 'guru'.
 
'Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage.' Anais Nin
 
'In fact, leaders... that go from good to great start not with 'where' but with 'who'. They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats... first the people, then the direction'. Jim Collins
 
'We need to make hope practical and despair less convincing as a central contribution from adults to young people.' Jaon Kenwg
 
'The human being is a walking paradox. We want to be free, completely individual on one hand, and we want to belong on the other hand. We want to be part of a flock but at the same time, you want to be you,' Kjell and Jonas
 
'Leaders... appeal to the heart... with people's deepest, heartfelt hopes. What are these hopes? Humans have a fundamental longing to believe we are successful in what we do - our need to achieve. Educators are typically denied this sense of success. Bombarded with too many state, national, and district standards for students to master... teachers are often unclear as to what they are supposed to accomplish'. Rick Dufor 2004
 
'This is a dreary era. Those who know about education have no power; those who have the power know little or nothing about education' Marion Brady US Educator
 
'The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizen, to put down dissent.' H L Menken
 
'It is one of life's great ironies: schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are terrible at learning from one another. If they ever discover how to do this, their future is assured.' Fullan 2001
 
'I will release you to be creatively crazy and wonderful for these students... We will do whatever it takes.' Lorraine Monro Author 'Nothings Impossible'
 
'Hire Rembrandt to do the painting and don't tell him how to paint.' Anon
 
'The leader lays down the melody line and encourages individual band members to improvise around them.' Bradley Porten US Educationalist
 
'If you are going to skate on thin ice, tap dance, and go down in style.' Bryce Courtenay
 
'Leaders need to have clear answer to the question 'What do we believe in? and be equally clear about... 'How do you translate your beliefs into actions?' Bowring Carr and Burnham West
 
'Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' Anon
 
'Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which one will I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat. 'I don't know Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'It doesn't matter.'' Alice in Wonderland
 
'Power can be taken, but not given. The process of taking is empowerment itself.' Gloria Steinem US Feminist
 
( We need) 'leadership that is tough enough to demand a great deal from everyone, and leadership that is tender enough to encourage the heart.' Thomas Sergiovanni Leadership for the Schoolhouse
 
'It is an injustice, a grave evil and disturbance of the right order for a large and higher organization to abrogate to itself functions which can be performed more efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.' Papal Encyclical
 
'Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir man's blood... make big plans. Aim high in hope and work.' Daniel H Burnham
 
'It is time for us to release ourselves from simplistic and ineffective prescriptions; the time to dream is upon us.' Carl Glickman
 
There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.' W C Fields
 
'The true leader senses and transforms the needs of followers.' James McGregor Burns
 
If we want to help people change, I s important that we don't push or pull them - just walk together.' 'Aquarian Conspiracy.'
 
'A team is a mosaic' Charles Williams
 
'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a genius- and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction,' E E Schumacher
 
'The best leaders are like outstanding samurai warriors in the sense that they engage themselves fully in the tasks at hand without being distracted by what might go wrong. Warren Bennis called this 'The Wallenda Factor' - putting ones energy into walking life's various wires without concern for the outcome'. Farson and Keyes.
 
'Decisions of the head rather than the heart are then ones we come to regret.' Patricia Weenolsen Psychologist
 
'When we are doing something we're passionate about, failure becomes a non-issue... Pursuit of a dream rarely leads to regrets... Too many of those with unrealized aspirations have set them aside due to fear of failure' Farson and Keyes.
 
'Nothing happens until someone does something.' Steve Farke Leadership Guru
 
No more prizes for building the ark .Prizes only for predicting rain.' Anon
 
Leadership is needed to assemble a team of renegades- people with the right mix of passion and courage to be willing to do things that haven't been done before.' Scott Lutz, CEO
 
'Never look down to test the ground before taking the next step; only he who keeps his eye on the far horizon will find the right road.' Dag Hammarskjold UN

'Briefly, leaders challenge the process because they are risk takers who capitalise on opportunities. As idealists they inspire a shared vision. They... instinctively nurture the talents and energy of colleagues. Leaders enable others to act. ...by serving as coaches and cheerleaders they encourage the heart.' Bennis
 
'Lead, follow or get out of the way' Anon
 
'I set myself as the goal the maximum capacity that people have - I settle for no less. I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.'
Benjamen Zander Conductor Boston
 
'You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from non-conformity, the ability to turn your back on old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesteryear for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We mist dare to invent the future.'Thomas Sankara African leader
 
'Who shall kindle others must himself glow.' Italian Proverb
 
'The only thing of real importance leaders do is to create and manage cultures.' Edgar Schein
'Our schools are over-managed and under-led.' Maurice Gionotti
 
'The best principals are not heroes; they are hero makers'. Roland Barth
 
'The art of leadership is keeping the herd roughly pointed west!' Anon
 
'Imagine that you would become a better teacher just by virtue of being on a the staff of a particular school - just from that one fact alone.' Michael Fullan
 
'Schools must forge greater relationships with the wider community, parents and other schools. Too many schools are working insolation. Schools need to share their power with students and the wider community.'. Fullan and Hargreaves
 
'The best leaders...almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories.' Tom Peters

Educational quotes 4 :The Change Process

'Rosy the Riviter' - a USA poster from WW2 to encourage woman into the workforce. When the GIs came home woman had changed their minds about their role in a modern society.

In reality 'learning' and 'change' are synonymous. Change is not an issue if it makes sense to and is 'owned' by those involved, rather than being arbitrarily imposed. An appreciation that change is a continual process, involving confusion and difficulty, is vital for future learners. 'It is not change that kills it is the transitions'

'Change is like dancing with a gorilla you can't stop because you're tired'. Anon

'Men are not afraid of things but of how they view them.' Epictetus

Every change process that I've seen that was sustained and spread started small.'
Fast Company
 
'There can be little doubt that. an untapped source of human intelligence and creativity is found among the vast number of individuals in the lower socio-economic levels...the bi- products of this waste are evident.. in unemployment ...in rising crime, delinquency rates, and most important in human despair.' Renzulli
 
'Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs, now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is as far as he knows the only way of coming downstairs, but somewhere he feels there is another way, if only he could stop for a moment and think of it.' A A Milne

'Route and destination must be discovered through the journey if you wish to travel to new lands... the key to success lies in the creative activity of making new maps.' Stacy
 
'It isn't the changes that kill you its the transitions' William Bridges
 
'The times are a-changing and if we don't we will sink like a stone.'Bob Dylan

 Lucy: 'Charlie Brown on the cruise ship of life which way is your deck chair facing?' Charlie Brown ponders and replies, 'I don't know, I've never been able to get one open'. Schultz

'Too much educational reform and restructuring is destroying teachers confidence, draining their energy, eating up their time and taking away their hope.' Fullan and Hargreaves
 
'Schools are among the very few institutions that have remained almost entirely unchanged for most of this century.' Judith Aitken 99
 
No other organisation institution faces challenges as radical as those that will transform the school'. Peter Drucker
 
'We need to help the majority unlearn what has been learnt and then help them learn what needs to unfold. Futurists believe that educational and community leaders must be 'disorientated' before they are orientated. That they must unlearn to learn.' Anon
 
'Every organisation has to prepare for the abandonment of every thing it does. Be prepared to abandon everything, lest we have to abandon the ship.Peter Drucker

'Our schools are OK if were 1965!' Stoll and Fink
 
'Half a revolution is worse than none.' Anon
 
' Teachers have been virtually shell shocked by barrages of 'semi- changes' that sap the energy while making few substantial differences - and the sounds of imminent changes are almost deafening.' Joyce and Showers
 
Between the idea and the reality, Between the notion and the act Falls the shadow'. T S Eliot
 
'The crew of the caravel Nina also saw the signs of land and a small branch covered with berries. Everyone breathed afresh and rejoiced at these signs.' Christopher Columbus

'The starting point for strategic planning is not the present but the future - a vision of where you want to be.... It is essential too that the vision is based on the guiding philosophy, core beliefs, and purpose of the organisation', ERO Report 95
 
Simplicity is the new competitive advantage.' Bill Jenson
 
'If a thing is not worth doing it is worth doing badly.' G K Chesterton
 
'Our lives are frittered away with detail ...simplify! simplify! simplify!' Henry Thoreau
 
'This bridge will take you halfway there- the last few steps you will have to take yourself.'  Shel Siverstein
 
'Today's Schools are not Tomorrows Schools. That's a fundamental misconception.'
David Lange
 
'Rarely do outside of school remedies work their way into the fabric of the schools or into the teachers lives, and more rarely into the classrooms. Therefore they only offer a modest hope of influencing the basic culture of the school' Roland Barth
 
'The best we educational planners can do is to create the conditions for teachers and students to flourish and get out of their way.' Theodore Sizer
 
'The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!' Steven Covey
 
'Be in charge of your own destiny or some one else will.' Jack Welch CEO
 
'All life is an experiment.' Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
'Life is the path you beat while you walk it.' Antonio Machado/Poet
 
'It takes more than one person to make a path.' African saying
 
'School should be the best party in town.' Peter Kline
 
To much emphasis has been placed on reforming school from the outside through policies and mandates. Too little has been paid to how schools can be shaped from within.' Roland Barth
 
'What is worth fighting for out there is ultimately about developing life lines of hope ...for all those desperately seeking a way forward.' Fullan and Hargreaves

'Some people think you are strong when you hold on. Others think it is when you let go'. Sylvia Robinson
 
'Too many decisions about changes are made by people untouched by the change process.' Peter Block, Business philosopher.
 
'How many times have we brought in an outsider to tell us what we already knew .' Peter Block
 
'Why follow the steps of another to find out where our dreams will lead us.' Peter Block
 
'To see the future you have to travel on the rough edge of experience.' Harriet Rubin Fast Company writer
 
'Things do not change; we change.' Thoreau
 
'Most people (by the time they have become adults ) can't change their minds because their neural pathways have become set... the longer neural pathways have been running one way the harder it is to rewire them.' Howard Gardner
 
'To the blind all things are sudden.' Old saying.
 
'Coming, ready or not!' Childhood game
 
'What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.' Peter Block Business, Philosopher Author of 'The Answer to No is Yes'
 
'You can plan events, but if they go according to plan they are not events.' John Berger Art Critic
 
'You can't jump a chasm in two bounds.' Chinese saying
 
'As the prostitute said, 'It's not the job it's the stairs.' Anon
 
'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.' R L Stevenson
 
'In a world of infinite choice people are struggling to figure out what to do.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'Nothing was ever achieved without enthusiasm.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'Innovation never happens as planned.' Gifford Pinchot Environmentalist
 
'Form follows function' Louis  Sullivan Architect
 
'Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.' Einstein
 
'If a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a new theory.' R L Stevenson
 
'The price of change is measured by our will and courage, our persistence, in the face of difficulty.' Peter Block Business Philosopher
 
'If you believe that saying no will get you shot, well, what a fine way to go.' Peter Block
 
'You must be the change you want to see in the world. If blood is to be spilled to do it. Let it be our own.'. Mahatma Gandhi
 
'It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.' W Edward Deming
 
'If life is like a stage I want better lighting.' Anon
 
'It is our belief that schools in the main are entering the twenty-first century with structures and more importantly, underlying assumptions which are nineteenth century in origins, or relating to the world of the 1950 or 1960s.' Bowring -Carr and Burnham West UK Educators
 
'To cope with a challenging world, any entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing - of developing new skills and attitudes; in short the capacity of learning.' A De Guess: 'The Living Company'.
 
'You cannot carry out fundamental changes without a certain amount of madness. In any case it comes from non - conformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen.' Thomas Sankarra African Congress.
 
In schools the main problem is not the absence of innovations but the presence of too many disconnected... piecemeal, superficially adorned projects... We are over our heads'. Fullan 2001
 
'Every change you see hides something else we want to do.' Rene Magritte ( Artist)
 
'Familiarity reduces the greatness of things.' Seneca 4BC-65BC
 
'Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted... the decades roll on without even a suggestion that perhaps the whole matter must be rethought' Marion Brady US Educator
 
'You can't force commitment, what you can do... You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.' Peter Senge
 
'It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time'. Margery Williams
 
'Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes along.' Samuel Butler
 
'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.' Forest Gump's Mother
 
'We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary egg. We must hatch or go bad.' C S Lewis
 
'Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
 
'The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn't know what it will be until it notices what it has become.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner - Rogers
 
'Age is a high price to pay for maturity.' Anon
 
'In order to transform schools successfully, educators need to navigate the difficult space between letting go of old patterns and grabbing on to new ones.' Deal 1990
 
'There is no risk less way to the future, we must choose which set of risks we wish to run.' Jay Ogilvy
 
'I have a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore.' Dorothy/ Wizard of Oz
 
'Men are asleep, they must die before they awake.' The Koran
 
'Custom lies on us heavy as frost'. William Wordsworth
 
'It takes less energy to be free and flowing than locked up in stress ... we learn by releasing and letting go, not by adding on.' William Bates Editor
 
'The road is better than the inn.' Cervantes
 
'The goal of strategic planning is to produce a stream of wise decisions... it also accepts the possibility that the final product may not resemble what was initially intended'. Patterson, Purkey and Parker
 
'I may have not got where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.' Douglas Adams
 
'Evolution is the most popular way we have for dealing with change.' Seth Godin Business Philosopher
 
'Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.' Jonas Salk
 
'Life is what happens when you are making other plans' John Lennon
 
'People don't want to feel stuck, they want to be able to change.' M C Richards Poet
 
'It is necessary; therefore it is possible.' C A Borghese
 
'Plan to be better tomorrow than today, but don't plan to be finished'. Carol Ann Tomlinson US Educator
 
'Crossing this river is difficult: it means leaving behind some of your own ideas' Dick Raymond
 
'When you start to abandoning your old beliefs or values... you may be stuck at the threshold for two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.' Dick Raymond
 
'Start with the spirit of the rule- bending it to shape best practice. If the system tightens up, go to the letter of the rule and efficiently do what is necessary with as little energy as possible in a way that minimizes impact.' Keith Goldhammer Author. 'Characteristics of successful Principals.
 
'If a things not worth doing do it badly and get on with the important things.' Bruce Hammonds ( adapted from G K Chesterton)
 
'If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing it badly.' G K Chesterton.
 
'Sometimes a thing worth doing is worth overdoing'. David Letterman TV Host

Coming soon to New Zealand!!!

A scene from Coronation Street.Teachers attending a 'Standardisation Day'!!



A combination of a Market Forces ideology and the powerful role of educational technocrats are pushing ahead worldwide with their agenda to provide parents with data ( 'League Tables') to give parents choice  with no understanding of the consequences of destroying diversity, creativity and innovation that such a narrowing of the curriculum involves. Education in the 21stC  is reduced to a reactionary 'Victorian '  emphasis on literacy and numeracy.

This is ironic as the future success of an innovative country requires the school system to develop the divers talents and gifts of all students.

This American article points to the fulfillment of the technocratic dream.


' A new Federal Grant  will expand North Carolina's  digital recording of student academic histories beginning in infancy for some children.

About 49 million of the $70 million 'Race to the Top' grant the Education Department awarded North Carolina will be used to expand to track the progress of younger children.Tracking already is done in a 2-year old database covering more than 1.5 children between kindergarten and 12th grade.

Teachers are also recorded with unique identification number so their performance can be tracked.

Four year olds enrolled in a state kindergarten programme were tracked previously.

State education officials have applied for a $4 million grant that would increase the ability to track students performance into their university or community college careers an even fellow students when they enter the workforce after leaving school.

Tracking  student learning from early years to graduation and beyond is a part of a national trend towards shaping efficient and effective schools based on "good data' instead of anecdotes and feelings and political decisions" said Adam Levitson the State Education official in charge of 'Race to the Top' grant programmes.

North Carolina is one of the half dozen states that share teacher information performance data based on student achievement, with the institutions from which they graduated.

Online trackers also allow parents to see how their children are doing. A system called NC WISE allows parents with an online password to track children's homework, standardized test results and days absent.'

I would suggest the 'officials' make study of Mc Donald's for models of the standardisation agenda or the work of Joseph Stalin's officials in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Or Adolf Hitler!! No point in reinventing wheels.

Educational quotes 3 :Vision and Values

We need to, after a decades of individualism and greed, return to values and behaviors that are respectful of each other, other cultures and our environment. School have to escape from an over emphasis on individualism and efficiency and return to valuing the democratic virtues that contribute to the common good of all people and cultures.

A vision without a task is a dream - a task without a vision is drudgery- but a task with vision can change the world'. Black Elk
 
'It is today that we create the world of the future'. Eleanor Roosevelt
 
'If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.' Chinese Proverb
 
'We can never discover new continents until we have the courage to lose sight of all coasts' Andre Gide
 
'The challenge of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but having new eyes'. Marcel Proust
 
'You cannot have a learning organisation without a shared vision...A shared vision provides a compass to keep learning on course when stress develops.' Peter Senge
 
'The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.' Peter Senge
 
'The best principals are not heroes; they are hero makers'. Roland Barth
 
'Following the sun we left the Old World.' Christopher Columbus
 
 'Many school are like a collection of sole charges with a shared car park!' Anon
 
'A school isn't good enough until it is good enough for our own children. In fact it's not only that it must be good enough for our own children but it must be the dream school we want for our children.'   H Levin Stanford Prof of Economics
 
In the absence of a great dream pettiness prevails. Shred visions foster risk taking, courage and innovation. Keeping the end in mind creates the confidence to make decisions even in moments of crisis.' Peter Senge
 
'In some ways clarifying a vision is easy. A more difficult challenge comes in facing current reality' Peter Senge
 
' There is no paint by numbers way to the future'. Anon
 
'Prediction is difficult- particularly when it involves the future.' Mark Twain
 
'The best way to predict the future is to invent it now.' Art Costa
 
Linus, 'I guess it wrong to be worried about tomorrow, maybe we should only worry about today?'
Charlie Brown, 'No, that's giving up: I'm hoping that yesterday will get better!' Shutlz

'We can easily forgive a child whom is frightened of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.' Plato
 
'The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise. Thomas Jefferson
 
' I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could tolerated anything so primitive.' John W Gardner
 
'It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.' Nick Giovanni US Poet
 
'Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land amongst the stars.' Les Brown
 
'You see things and say 'Why'? But I see things and say 'Why not?' G.B Shaw
 
'Ones vision is not a road map but a compass'. Peter Block Business Philosopher
 
'The pathway to educational excellence lies within each school.' Terrance Deal
 
'One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.' John Dewey
 
'If people who have to work together in an enterprise trust one another it is because they are all operating to a common set of ethical norms....such a society will be better able to innovate...since the high degree of trust will permit a wide variety of social relationships to emerge...' Fukuyama 95 Trust
 
'We imagine a school in which students and teachers excitedly and joyfully stretch themselves to their limits in pursuit of projects built on their vision...not one that succeeds in making apathetic students satisfying minimal standards.' S Papert
 
'It is our dream that students will ...experience their classrooms as invigorating, even inspiring environments - places they look forward to going to and places they hate to leave. It is our dream that they will come to know themselves as masters of various crafts...It is our dreams that ...they will come to love the process of learning itself... by making it their own.' Paideia Schools
 
'Too many young people are being taught to give up their dreams before they have any experience attempting to pursue them'. Robert Fritz 'The Path of Least Resistance'
 
'It takes courage and skill to be unambiguous and clear.' Peter Senge
 
'A shared vision is not an idea...it is rather, a force in people's hearts...at its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question 'What do we want to create?' Peter Senge
 
'We need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies - images of potential tomorrows.' Alvin Tofler
 
'I believe we are afraid of recognizing how fundamental our lives would have to be changed if we should choose to work out of a shared vision.' Ralph Theobald
 
We need to value the importance of simplicity, focus and living according to our values.' Phillip Humbert http://www.philliphumbet.com/
 
'It is not so much about to see what no one has seen before but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees.' Schopenhauer
 
'Thinking School; Thinking Nation' Singapore Educational Vision
 
'Love is saying yes to belonging' David Steindle -Rast ( Theologist)
 
'We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner -Rogers.
 
'New frameworks are like climbing a mountain - the larger view encompasses rather than rejects the more restricted view.' Einstein
 
'the void in our society has been produced by the absence of values... we have no widespread belief in the value of participation. The rational system has made us fear standing out in any serious way.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards'.
 
'Principles are deep fundamental truths... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life.' Steven Covey 92
 
'Education without values, as useful as it is, seems to make a man more clever devil.' C S Lewis
 
'A clever arrangement of bad eggs will never make a good omelet.' C S Lewis
 
'The heart and soul of school culture is what people believe, the assumptions they make about how school works.' Thomas Sergiovanni
 
'It is what teachers think, what teachers do, and what teachers are at the level of the classroom that ultimately shapes the kind of learning that young people get.' Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan
 
'Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair..' William James
 
'A belief is not a belief until you can visualize it, unless you can create a picture of it in your minds eye, especially if you have no doubts that reality can be - or is - possible.' Hedley Beare Aust Educationalist
 
'Something magical happens when you bring together a group of people from different disciplines with a common purpose.' Mark Stefik Palo Alto Research Centre Fellow
 
'If we believe something does not exist unless we measure it, then we put aside: love, feeling, intuition, art and philosophy.' Peter Block 'The Answer to How is Yes.'
 
Every person in the organization must change inside their hearts and minds, so that they themselves become principle centred.' Stephen Covey Business Philosopher
 
'We may never fully appreciate the role that not pursuing a dream plays in limiting people to disappointing careers and regret filled lives... 'I used to be so gutsy'... 'What happened?.' Anon
 
'I think I don't regret a single excess of my responsive youth, I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.' Henry James

Educational quotes 2 : School As A Learning Community

For the past decade or so we have seen schools being forced to comply to a business managerial ideology that has all but crushed the common sense and creativity of innovative teachers and schools. We believe now is the time to reclaim schools as democratic learning communities based on shared values and teaching beliefs that realize the gifts and talents of all students.

 Peter Senge introduced the idea of the 'Learning Organisation', Now he says... to change we need to stop thinking like mechanics and to start acting like gardeners... Companies are actually living organisms not machines'  From 'Fast Company Magazine

'Community building must become the heart of any school improvement effort.
Thomas Sergiovanni

'Culture is the underground stream of norms, values, beliefs, traditions, and rituals that builds up over time as people work together, solve problems, and confront challenges .This set of informal expectations and values shapes how people think, feel, and act in schools.' Deal and Patterson 98
 
'Some schools develop 'toxic' cultures which actively discourage efforts to improve teaching or student achievement.' Deal and Patterson 98

'To cope with a changing world, any entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing - of developing new skills and attitudes; in short, the capability of learning.'
A De Gues, The Living Company
 
'Secondary education is a more purely industrial age institution than any business.' Peter Senge 'The School That Learns'
 
(Our large schools)..are organized like a factory of the late 19th C : top down, command control management, a system designed to stifle creativity and independent judgment.' David T Kearns CEO Xerox
 
'Most schools are drowning in events…An attention deficit culture' Peter Senge
 
'If we remain wedded to the way education is currently provided we cannot imagine other ways.. we need some imagination , some fantasy, some new ways of thinking - some magic in fact' Hedley Beare Prof of Educ Melbourne
 
'We must act as if our institutions are ours to create, our learning is ours to define, our leadership we seek is ours to become. Peter Block Philosopher
 
'Many of our schools are good schools if only this were 1965'. Louise Stoll and Dean Fink
 
'If we want to create a workplace that values idealism, human connection, and real, in depth learning, we will have to create it ourselves'. Peter Block
 
'It is a tragedy that, for most of us, school is not a place for deepening our sense of who we are and what we are committed to. If it were, think of the lasting changes it would have made.' Peter Senge
 
'All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning of our community depends on its capacity to develop each gift.' Peter Senge 'The Learning School.'
 
'Parents and educators…need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise -Up'
 
'In high performing schools…Teachers feel invigorated, challenged, professionally engaged, and empowered just because they are there.' Margaret Arbuckle US educator
 
'It is strange perhaps to realize that most people have a desire to love their organizations. They love the purpose of their school....They fall in love with the identity that is trying to be expressed. They connect to the founding vision.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
 
'The guiding principle being put forward is that schools must be self directing.' John Goodland
 
'As the world becomes more inter-connected organizations that will truly excel in the future will be ( those)... that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn.' Peter Senge 'The Fifth Discipline'
 
'Stories are the most effective ways of changing minds...there has to be a protagonist. There has to be a goal. There have to be obstacles people can identify with. There has to be an ultimate resolution - hopefully a positive one...what leaders do is put aside or reject the old story, the story you have grown up with. Leaders say, 'No it's a different story. You may not like it initially, but it's a better story in the long run, and you have to go with it and here is why...' . Howard Gardner 2004 'The Art and Science of Changing Peoples Minds.
 
'We can create our own characters and write our own script, if properly taught: 'In a very real sense...human being create themselves' and school can be stage on which children work through the plot, rehearse their roles, learn the cues, create social functions, try out their 'ideal selves' for size, play hero parts which demonstrate their capability for greatness.' Jerry Starratt Expert School Leadership
 
'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.' Margaret Mead
 
'Umuatu ngumuntu naga antu' 'A person is a person because of other people.' Zulu saying
 
'Ones actions ought to come from achieved stillness: not rushing on.' D H Lawrence
 
'It is difficult to know what a fish talks about, but you can be sure it is not about water.' Old joke
 
'We are truly the fish in the water of industrial age assumptions' Peter Senge
 
 Kettering (US inventor) has little time for conventional education. He thought genuine innovators were hobbled more than helped by what they had learned in school. Overly educated people were least likely to make new discoveries...they were too intent on doing things the way they had been taught.' Farson and Keynes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
 
'Progress seldom leads to serenity, nor should it. A serene workforce is unlikely to try new things .Creative workers gripe a lot but at a high level...They are concerned about having the leeway and support to be create something new. They want their talents to be utilized. They crave a challenge'. Farston and Keynes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
 
'This acceptance ( that neither success or failure are what it seems to be) produces work environments that are genuinely risk friendly, which is to say failure tolerant...Those who are passionately engaged in a task they care about are the ones most likely to achieve success...This is the samurai way.' Farson and Keyes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'.
 
Life is like a cobweb, not an organizing chart.' Ross Perot US Computer Businessman
 
'We spend too much of our time worrying about the mosquitoes and not enough time concerning ourselves about the health of the pond.' Anon
 
'People come to relate to each other in predicable ways, which form a pattern that when defined the structure of relationships - norms, expectations, taken for granted habits of communicating. These patterns aren't fixed; they can change. Fast Company
 
' Communities of the mind are collections of individuals who are bonded together by natural will and to a set of shared ideals and ideals.' Thomas Sergiovanni
 
A learning organisation sees the environment. as messy, complex and volatile. It picks and chooses it's way attempting to use certain events as catalysts for action, turn constraints into opportunities, and blunt or minimise the impositions that do not make sense...because they know that that is the only way to survive and prosper in a complex environment. Michael Fullan
 
'Shared values are more important than paper and policies. We need, passion, people, and pride. Leadership not management.' Lester Levy
 
'Without question we have had a breakdown in the sense of community. The solution is to restore a sense of community...and doing within the school.' James Comer
 
Ko te pae tawhiti, whaia kia tata Ko te pae tata, whakamaua kia tina' ( Seek those distant horizons and cherish those you attain ) Maori saying
 
'It's not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest'. Charles Darwin
 
'To raise new questions, new problems, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances'
Albert Einstein
 
' Education for the future has left the harbour and is already on the open seas. Some educators are still clinging to the belief that the ship hasn't left and are invested in business as usual. Some educators are enjoying the freedom of the open seas .... excited about the foreign ports and places they will visit '
 Renata and Geoffrey Caine
 
'Changing public education is like punching a pillow or as someone once said like moving a cemetery; after you've done all the work you still have a cemetery.' Art Costa
 
'Our challenge. How do we create organisational coherence...how do we create structures that move with change, that are flexible and adaptive...that enable rather than constrain? How do we resolve the need for personal freedom and autonomy with organisational needs for prediction and control' Margaret Wheatley
 
'Biological systems are adaptable, resilient, and capable of generating perpetual novelty. That's not a bad list of attributes for a company of the future.' M Wheatley
'The essential purpose is to decide for oneself what is of genuine value in life. And then to find the courage to taker your own thoughts seriously Albert Einstein
 
'To control and sort young people for the sake of institutional efficiency is to crush the human spirit.' Ron Miller

Educational quotes 1: general philosophy

The is the first of  A series of educational quotes from Leading-Learning website which is to be discontinued. The quotes were the most visited pages on the website.

General Philosophy.


It is important that a school be 'led' by a set of agreed shared beliefs. To achieve this the staff and community need to enter into a series of 'learning conversations' to define and articulate such a philosophy. As it is said: If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything' or 'Control your own destiny or someone else will'.
 
 
'What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.' John Dewey

'The vitality of thought is an adventure.Ideas won't keep.Something must be done about them'. Alfred North Whitehead.
 
'We need a metamorphosis of education - from the cocoon a butterfly should emerge. Improvement does not give us a butterfly only a faster caterpillar.' Learning to Learn http://www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au/
 
'No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world anew.' Albert Einstein
 
'Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results' Albert Einstein.
 
'Some people would rather die than think'.  Bertrand Russell
 
'If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we've always got.' Adam Urbanski
 
'One can never consent to creep when one feels the compulsion to soar'. Helen Keller
 
'Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.' Oliver Wendell Holmes Jnr
 
'Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each others errors….Only a sailor can set them straight'. John Ralston Saul, 'Voltaire's Bastards'.
 
'The faithful witness, like…Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent…He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards'
 
'Anecdotes, personal stories, reminiscences, like biblical parables, are the medium through which faith is restored. Stories are a form of poetry, and give us a saving image to personally relate to.' Peter Block Business Philosopher
 
'Wordsmiths who serve established power…castrate the public imagination by subjecting language to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim.' John Ralston Paul, 'Voltaire's Bastards.'
 
'It is today we must create the world of the future.' Eleanor Roosevelt
 
'The human mind treats a new idea the way a body treats a strange problem it rejects it.' Sir Peter Medawar
 
'Some folks are wise, some are otherwise'. Tobies George Smollett
 
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.' Isaac Newton
 
'Those who do nothing are never wrong.' Theodore de Bouville
 
'The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.' J P Harltley From the Go -Between
 
'We are natural mind changing entities until we are 10 or so. But as we get older…then it is very hard to change our minds'. Howard Gardner
 
'Fundamentalism is a kind of decision not to change your mind about something…Many of us are fundamentalists…because it worked pretty well for us.' Howard Gardner
 
'Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'The world by and large has to be reinvented.' Charles Handy in 'Beyond Certainty'.
 
'There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.' Frederico Fellini Film Director
 
'Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge'. Winston Churchill
 
'There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.' Peter Drucker Business Philosopher.
 
'Don't try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present.' Peter Drucker
 
'I believe that revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new life forms.' M Gorbachev
 
'Chaos breeds life, where order breeds habit,' Henry Brooks US Historian
 
'Is anybody alive out there?' Bruce Springsteen to the crowd.
 
'It is impossible to soar like an eagle if you are surrounded by turkeys' Anon
 
'Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.' Edward de Bono
 
'To simplify you have to clarify. Simplification is the new competitive advantage' Jack Trout 'Simplicity'
 
'Our life is frittered away by detail.. simplicity simplicity, simplicity.' Henry Thoreau
 
'We need to be the authors of our own life.' Peter Senge
 
'We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture.' Peter Block, Philosopher
 
'We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming'. Verner von Braun
 
'First define, then refine'. Bill Guild NZ Pioneer teacher
 
'Everything of importance has been said by someone who didn't invent it.' Alfred North Whitehead.
 
'How has the world of the child changed in the last 150 years?' … the answer is. 'It's hard to imagine any way in which it hasn't changed….they're' immersed in all kinds of stuff that was unheard of 150years ago, and yet if you look at schools today versus 100 years ago, they are more similar than dissimilar'. Peter Senge
 
''Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.' John Ralston Paul 'Voltaire's Bastards.'
 
'The conduct of schools, based upon a new order of conception, is so much more difficult than is the management of schools which walk the beaten path.' John Dewey
 
'Much educational change is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to get a better view'. Anon
 
Being on tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.' Karl 'The Great' Wallenda
 
'A pessimist is a person who looks both ways before crossing a one way road.' L Peters
 
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.' Les Brown
 
In the end we will have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically.' Vincent van Gogh
 
'It is difficult to know what a fish talk about but you can be sure it isn't about water'. Anon 
 
'We can make the trains run on time but if they are not going where we want them to go, why bother?' Neil Postman
 
'The development of a tree depends on where it is planted.' Edward Joyner Yale Univ. School
 
'We each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
 
Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.' Peter Berger Sociologist
 
'It is always the minorities who aren't part of a mainstream who define what the limits…of the majority are going to be.' Rose Elizabeth Bird, US Chief Justice, California
 
'The East contemplated the forest the West counted the trees…the mind that knows that trees and the forest is a new mind.' Marilyn Ferguson
 
Bureaucracies are beautiful mechanisms for the evasion of responsibilities and guilt.' Warren Bennis Leadership expert
 
' I know of no other safe depository of the ultimate power of society but the people themselves and if we think ( the people) not enlightened enough to exercise that control with a wholesome discretion the remedy is not to take it from them , but to inform their discretion by education'. Thomas Jefferson 1820
 
'A little revolution now and then is a good thing.' Thomas Jefferson
 
'Slow down you are going too fast'. Simon and Garfunkle
 
'The world is crazier, and more of it than we think, incorrigibly plural.' Louis MacNeice Author
 
'You may feel like a voice in the wilderness, but it is your voice we are waiting to hear…you are the determining factor.' Neale Donald Walsh Author
 
'Courage is the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible.' Aristotle
 
'Teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live there.' Sioux Indian saying
 
'Everything important is already known, the only thing is to rediscover it.' Anon
 
'Every reform was once private opinion.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'Those of us who are old can afford to live dangerously. We have less to lose.' Maggie Kuhn Grey Panthers
 
'Age is compulsory, wisdom is optional'. Anon
 
'The most potent force for change …is the growing recognition of millions of adults that there own impoverishment came from a large measure, from their schooling.'  Marilyn Fergussen Aquarian Conspiracy.
 
'Some of us are just less damaged than others.' ( by schooling) Buckminster Fuller
 
'An impressive proportion of great, original thinkers were educated at home…stimulated (and) born up by high expectations' Aquarian Conspiracy
 
'Home is the first school for us all, a school with no fixed curriculum, no quality control, no examinations, no teacher training' Charles Handy
 
'When the spirit of people is strong focused and vibrant, wonderful things happen'. Harrison Owen
 
'Present thinking people kill the future.' Ken Blanchard ,Business Consultant
 
'If you can change your mind, you can change the world.' Joey Reimer Creativity Guru
 
'When I was young I thought that people at the top really understood what the hell was happening…now I know they don't know.' David Mahoney
 
'The first people had the questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they became enslaved.' Wind Eagle Modern Indian Medicine Woman
 
'I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers…creativity above fact regurgitation…individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance….. And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy. Tom Peters Author 'Re-imagine' http://www.tompeters.com/
 
'We are all carriers of our own stories. We have never trusted our own voices. Reforms came, but we don't make them. They were presented by people removed from schools, by 'experts'. Such changes bi passes school. School by school changes, however slow, could make a powerful difference.' Deborah Meier, 'Good Schools are Still Possible'
 
'The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.' William Gibson
 
'Reformation comes from the bottom up - a transformation demanded by the people.' Religious writer
 
'Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind' Thomas Jefferson
 
'Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of security….The new security will be a belief that …if this doesn't work out you could do something else'. You are your own security'. Charles Handy Business Philosopher.
 
'The homogenization of cultural diversity and the destruction of cultural history are central forces underlying societal breakdown worldwide'…… what is the deepest and most profound force driving change , I'd say it is the awareness, however dim and ill formed , that we are in deep trouble…The first step is to realize everything is interrelated.' Peter Senge 'Through the Eye of the Needle'
 
'The slick houses and holiday homes of the rich hiding the despair of the poor.' Anon
 
'We have been through a period when knowledge was fragmented, but dreams of coherence survived….. the expanding edges of fields…are closer to each other than are the central cores.' Carnegie Foundation/Teaching 77.
 
'We have been the benefactors of our cultural heritage and the victims of our cultural narrowness.' Stanley Kripper Psychologist
 
'What we thought was the horizon of our potential turns out to be only the foreground.' Tom Roberts Educator
 
'We will not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.' T S Eliot 'Little Gidding'
 
'The centre falls about. The centre cannot hold.' W B Yeats
 
'Chaos breeds life, while order breeds success.' Franklin P Adams
 
'Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual' Erich Fromm
 
'What is to give life must endure burning.' Victor Frankl
 
'Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon people back to the old ideas.' Marilyn Ferguson
 
'The map is not the territory.' Alfred Korzybski /Semanticist
 
'We are told not to cross a bridges until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have crossed bridges far ahead of the crowd,' Anon
 
'If I knew what was going to happen in ten years I would do it now. I just follow my nose.' Stephen Hawkins Physicist
 
'Fall in love with your life's work again, my fiend, or your energy will wane, your voice will falter and there will be nothing to prove but the fact that you are taking up valuable space.' Anon
 
'Carpenters bend wood fletchers bend arrows; wise men fashion themselves.' Buddha
 
'In the end we shall have had enough cynicism and skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to live life more musically.' Vincent van Gogh
 
'Do not go where the path may lead; go where there is no path and leave a trail.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
'If you are looking for a big opportunity, find a big problem.' Anon
 
'Choices in life are rarely pure, but to understand the middle ground it is helpful to imagine the extremes.' Peter Berger, Sociologist
Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for.' Fullan and Hargreaves

Lucy: 'Charlie Brown on the cruise ship of life which way is your deck chair facing?' Charlie Brown ponders and replies, 'I don't know, I've never been able to get one open'. Charles Schultz
'After you understand the about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.' Alfred North Whitehead
 
'Whatever you can dream, begin to do it. Boldness has the power and magic in it.' Goethe
 
'As a child lives today he will live tomorrow' John Dewey
 
If you plan is for one year, plant rice;
If you plan is for ten years, plant trees;
If your plan is for a hundred years,
Educate children.' Confucius
 
If you know where you want to go, you have a better chance of getting there' Anon
 
Destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice.' Anon
 
' There is a road to the heart and it doesn't go through the intellect.' G K Chesterton
 
'Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Chaos breeds life while order breeds habits' Henry Adams.
 
'Where all think alike no-one thinks much.' Walter Lipman
 
'It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask for permission.' Jesuit saying
 
'It takes a whole village to raise a child.' African saying
 
'Schools should be a mirror of a future society.' Anon
 
'How do we recapture the magic and myth of education? ... to enable teachers to believe in their importance...so teachers and the public can rediscovers the hope schools once held?' Deal and Peterson
 
'We make realities out of our dreams and dreams out of our realities. We are the dreamers of the dream.' Roald Dahl
 
'Education is at a turning point' Howard Gardner
 
'All great truths begin as blasphemies.' George Bernard Shaw
 
'If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.' Ludwig Wittgenstein

Elwyn Richardson: NewZealand's pioneer creative teacher.

Take 15 minutes to view this U -Tube video of Elwyn's work and pass it on to others.

I was reading in an art book I was given for Christmas about all the influences that had contributed to the development to the artists personal style.

Everybody has people who have contributed to the beliefs they currently hold and I got to thinking who had made the greatest contribution to my own views about education.

In one way I was was rather privileged because most of my time in teaching, since the 60s, has been as an itinerant specialist teacher, first in nature study, later as an adviser in science and for a short time an art adviser. I say privileged because the various advisory roles enabled me to come across number of teachers whose approach to teaching and learning stood out from other teachers.

I have aways believed that the best professional development is to be gained by observing other teachers - particularly those who have the ability to draw the best out of their students. Teachers have a  profound respect for the advice from those who do the real work.Unfortunately, in recent decades, 'experts' from outside the classroom have become the sources of 'official'  knowledge and this has led to a reduction in the importance of those creative teachers. This is is a shame.

In my early years the most innovative teachers I was lucky to visit were principals of small rural schools.Bigger urban school were very traditional places in those days.  There isn't much point in mentioning names as all have long since retired but they, I realised later, were aware of the creative ideas that were in the air, in all areas of life, after the World War Two. In New Zealand progressive child centred ideas were being encouraged under the guidance of Dr Beeby the then Director of Education.

During the sixties I became involved with local art advisers ( who were under the guidance of National Art Director Gordon Tovey. With Gordon's encouragement the art advisers involved teachers to explore integrated  or related art studies.  With most classrooms having every part of the day timetables this was a revolutionary approach and suited those teachers in multi-age small schools who had the freedom to experiment.  Unfortunately such advisers, in a range of fields , are now history and  leaving an important inspirational gap that has never been filled.

Also during this time I became aware of the UK Junior Nuffield Science approach and worked with a number of local teachers to implement such ideas. This approach encouraged open ended inquiries based on children question making use of the immediate environment. This  dovetailed nicely with the ecological approaches that were being encouraged by nature study and later science advisers.

It was during this time I learnt about the exciting work of Elwyn Richardson  in his small school in the far North written up in his book 'In The Early World'.

Another important influence to my beliefs came from my visit to the UK to learn more about Nuffield Science and English child centred learning. The most important aspect was working in a very progressive school King Farm School Gravesend Kent.

Returning to New Zealand I worked with a small group of Taranaki teachers to develop what came to be known as the Taranaki Environmental Education Approach (the environment referred to the importance of stimulating classroom environments and making use of the rich local environment). This group combined ideas from the related art approaches,   English progressive teaching and the ideas of Elwyn Richardson ( who we had made contact with).

At this point my ideas about teaching and learning had become clear. Going teaching for a few years in the 70s  enabled me to put them into practice as did being a principal in the late 80s.

Since then lots of ideas from a range of educationalists have added to the mix.

Unfortunately sine 1986 the winds of change worldwide have sent school off in another direction towards standardised education -an approach that undermines the very creativity and diversity that New Zealand educators had gained world wide respect for

It is time for  schools to return to believing in the importance of creative teachers as the source of lasting change.  Teachers will need to work together ( they now have the technology to do so) to articulate a set of beliefs for the new century - one thing that they could do is get behind the  almost side tracked 2007  New Zealand National Curriculum.

Elwyn remains as an inspiration of what can be achieved if we want to develop the talents and gifts of all students

Extreme views on Education -I think not!

In a comment to my  Christmas blog Mr and Mrs Symonds , formally of Auckland and now living in Sydney, wrote that it was 'because of people like you we have taken our children to be educated in Australia'.  'Your views on education', they wrote, 'are extreme' and 'out of touch with what parents want of a modern education system'.

They began their comment by saying they were 'glad I was going from New Zealand education' and concluded with the phrase 'weird and creepy' - I presume they were referring to themselves? And I have no idea who they  include in the 'people like you' comment nor what they define as a 'modern education system' that parents like them want.

Below is a comment from a New Zealand teacher now working  in Australia. Is this the  'modern system' that parents like the Symonds want? It certainly reflects the agenda of the current government in New Zealand.

'We are right into national testing over here. There is now national testing of all year 3, 5, 7, and 9 students. It just used to be in the other states. Victoria used to be told that we were lagging behind the other states but now, low and behold, after national teaching we are one of the top states. We also have online testing in Numeracy and Maths with the results going to the Department. This is done 3x a year. Our reports are also put directly into the Department. Accountability is everything, don't worry about the teaching. We are told that it does not matter where the students start our job is to get them up to national average and they are trying to bring in performance based pay as well. Also pay incentives for expert teachers and principals to work in disadvantaged areas.’

Sounds very Eastern European to me - something Joseph Stalin would have been proud of or right-wing political American thinkers today. Hardly modern.

Here is what one American educationalist has written ( Glickman 2006)

Today, measuring the accomplishments of students, teachers, and schools by standardised test scores and handing out rewards and punishments for reaching or failing to reach state and federal standards has become commonplace.

In such a climate, we typically err too much on the side of avoiding failure by relying on externally approved " research based" programmes, teaching methods, and assessments that are officially prompted by state and federal governments ( through their agencies).

What we lose in the process is imagination.Failure cannot go unchallenged, but what we have today is our own failure to imagine new possibilities and the worth of what has already worked well*. There is no tragedy in reaching for the stars and falling short; the greatest tragedy in never reaching at all.'

*added

Anyway the below are the 'extreme views' on learning I have been sharing (and will continue to do so) over the years.  I will leave it over to anyone who reads the blog to decide if they are  'weird and creepy' or 'not what parents want for a modern education'.

It is important to appreciate that students are  entering a new age of creativity ; an  era of knowledge creation - where the ability to continue learning, to  develop new ideas, even when confused, will be an important attribute.

I believe that a modern education system ought to focus on developing the talents and gifts of all students and not to judge their success on their test scores only in literacy and numeracy.

I believe that students future success depends on the power of their personal motivation realised :through making choices; achieving mastery; and in the process developing a powerful sense of personal autonomy. As part of gaining success students need to value personal effort and focused practice. These ideas are ignored by standardised testing. Effort and practice sound old fashioned but if neglected little learning will stick.

I believe that learning ought to based on helping students answer questions that engage them in realistic studies; studies that  call on whatever learning areas are necessary to solve the problem. And students also need to appreciate the power of collaborating with others by working in teams.

I believe that the role of the teachers is that of a creative learning coach who follow the advice of educationalist Jerome Bruner who said. 'teaching is the  canny art of intellectual temptation'. Teachers should help students construct their own learning  - and learning should be personalised to suit each learner.

I believe that teachers should ensure all  the various strategies and skills are in place ( including literacy and numeracy)  so students have every chance of success. This includes integrating modern information technology.

To achieve quality learning it is important for students to dig deeply into any learning challenge - to do fewer things well so as to develop the importance of personal excellence.

Can't see what is not 'modern' or is 'weird' in the above.

Merry Christmas to All!

Our family father Christmas manufacturing last minute gifts for our 2010 Christmas - another bloody cheeseboard! Only joking Graeme


It is the night before Christmas and it's a beautiful still hot night

After some last minute shopping I spent the day out at my good friends Sarah and Wayne's drinking wine, eating, and enjoying conversation - now sun burnt and tired! Fished up having coffee at the beach and a restful meal with some old friends.

Tomorrow I am having family around for drinks in the morning before going off to eat more food and drink more wine with one branch of our extended family. The weather promises to be superb - the only downer is news of more earthquakes in Christchurch. It doesn't seem fair !

2012 is a 'tipping point' for me - to use an in phrase.

The last few years I have had my house painted and it is now fit for the 21stC. At the same time I have developed my hectare of swamp and bush into a garden of sorts by building bridges and walkways so that it is all now assessable. It is more a nature trail than a garden but my piece of bush ( thanks to owners of the land in the 1930s) has almost every native tree you an think of - including a half dozen 80 year old kauris. While in England I visited Charles Darwin's house ( I am a great fan of Charles Darwin) and he had a walk he used to stroll around thinking up his ideas - I have made a similar walk but not so many ideas!

So the garden has become a new obsession for me.

Towards the end of the year my brother  ( Father Christmas above) and I had a small art exhibition in our home town of Waverley in the local library - a fitting place since our mother was a mainstay of the library in her time. I have to admit my contributions were painted in the 1960s but it has motivated me to take up painting again - in the new year!

After a highly successful birthday party last January I gave a keynote presentation at an Inspired Impact Conference in Palmerston North to over 1400 people. They didn't really come to hear me - the main attraction was creativity guru Sir Ken Robinson. Actually he didn't show because of illnesses but gave his presentation via a satellite link - even took questions from the floor. Brilliant but wasted on our current government and Ministry who seem hell bent on destroying all that is good in primary education.

I saw my keynote as my final performance in education; with the current directions of the government it is no longer a place to be talking about personalising learning or creativity. So that one past obsession out of the way. I even got a big bin a chucked out two cubic metres of educational notes - a mental clean out of sorts. I kept some good bits of course - just in case. And now I have a lot tidier house - for me!

Perhaps the highlight of my year  was visiting old friends in England  ( they had come out to New Zealand for 'our' party - I  have a twin brother.The party was his idea and I am pleased he bullied me into having one. I taught with my English friends in 1969 and 'we' have kept in touch. We all went out for a pub meal with our old headteacher who is now 94!

I have other very important things on my mind but they haven't been sorted yet.

I intend to keep reading and blogging but I am going to wind up the website I started with my friend Wayne a long time ago. I am planning to capture some of the material and use it as blogs so not all will be lost. And , if asked, I will continue to contribute to the Education Today magazine edited by Doug Hislop. Looking back our best fun articles were: New Zealand's 'top schools' ( schools from the far north geographically in New Zealand!) and the articles written after our educational odyssey around  the East Coast.

So Merry Christmas to everyone.

I hope some of my blogs have been of use to you and I hope there are younger people around to take up the fight for creative education while I get on and explore new territory.

Watch this space!