Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has so many memories for me. Most have to do with food! I remember a time when my mom spent her time baking pies. That was always fun. Being born on Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is my favorite. I wonder who remembers that the concession at Kuhio Beach sold squares of pumpkin and custard pies. They were great. My cousin Barbara made and sent the recipe for a fancy layered pumpkin pie. That was a winner. On The Splendid Table, they were talking about the skin of the turkey. My dad would remove the skin from the turkey and then get some gravy on it and eat that. I used to think that was odd but as I grow older I found out that my dad knew what was the good stuff to eat. If anything food is an essential part of my family. I always say that when someone in our family dies we all adjourn to the kitchen to tell funny things they did. I hope that is a tradition that continues.

Auntie Pasto's, Kunia

I have decided to not only write about education, music and fine arts but also expand into other things. Went to lunch at Auntie Pasto’s in Kunia. Service could improve but ok. I had a coupon for pizza and a soda. Had the sausage and peppers pizza. It had red, yellow and green peppers, onions and sausage on a thin crust. Very good , I like thin crusts lately. Also had a Peroni on draft.

Just a note for you teachers. If you are frustrated by contract negotiations you should blame the 2010 GRC committee. I was a member but members from Kona and Hilo seemed hell-bent on recommending Abercrombie and discussion was minimal.

I hope to do this regularly again. I need a way to vent. Just a few observations. Central Oahu District is anti civil rights. The civil rights compliance officer is a joke. HSTA needs better uniservs. they realy provide poor representation. The cave in of the roof at Farrington High School is a symptom of an ineffective department. Trying to blame the church (who tried to do repairs) is no class. the superintendent should be fired.the DOE has become corrupt. UH board of regents should not have any input into what coaches should be retained. They do not have the background to do so. If (as Donovan said) that McMackin was asked to resign under the threat of an investigation. Doesn't that imply that an investigation was necessary? And if his resignation stopped that investigation, doesn't that mean another investigation is needed to find out what the initial investigation hid? Just saying. It seems to me that Greenwood is only interested in getting her people in. people loyal to her and not the university. Buying computers for students is a stupid idea. who will maintain? who will monitor? besides students don't know how to use computers for what we would like them to do. they use them like typewriters or toys. students need to learn how to think (which a certain central district cas seems to oppose). then use the computer as a tool. students need to learn to be responsible for their own learning. students need to learn to write cursive. besides learning fine motor skills it will help them to become critical thinkers. art and music is a necessary part of life. it is not an extra, it is not a frill. civilizations from the beginning of time have had music there is a reason.

HSTA Leadership?

Sesnita Moepono recusing herself from the Labor Board Hearing is one thing. Hearing her reason is another. It saddens me that the reason is attacks from HSTA members.

It brings up the fact that HSTA members and its leadership have no clue about politics. Over the past few years we have not had a qualified GRC specialist or a GRC chair that has any idea what to do. The leadership at HSTA has more invested in protecting their positions than in doing what is right for teachers.

Scarier yet we have leaders who do not learn from previous mistakes

Return

Okay I have neglected the blog. I have been fighting a false charge and I have lost so I have free time and will concentrate on the blog.

Blueberries

This is for all who teach or have taught and for all those who read the newspapers and wonder why big business thinks that it should run our schools...


THE BLUEBERRY STORY

A Businessman Learns a Lesson
by Jamie Robert Vollmer

"If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!" I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in-service. 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 for an ice cream company that became famous in the middle 1980s 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 all: GT, ADHD, ADD, SLD, EI, MMR, OHI, TBI, DD, Autistic, junior rheumatoid
arthritis, English as their second language, etc.
We take them all! Everyone!

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 postindustrial 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.

Please forward THE BLUEBERRY STORY to teachers, parents, politicians and everyone interested in education.