Rob Evans' Latest Book

     The following is quoted from Rob's website page that describes his latest book, Seven Secrets of The Savvy School Leader.

"School leaders today are working harder than ever, longer than ever, dealing with ever greater complexity, and sacrificing ever more of their personal and family time to their work. How can we make school leadership more doable and offer hope to both experienced and beginning leaders? Offering solid advice for overcoming even the most daunting of leadership challenges, this book is both a survival guide and a road map for excellence."

     If you are a head of school or principal get a copy.

An Inspiration to All Parents

     While in the middle of reading the NYTimes bestseller War by Sebastian Junger, I was totally consumed by "Spirit Intact, a Soldier Reclaims His Life" a NYTimes article about Brendan Marrocco, Iraq veteran.  It is important to click through the audio and picture links contained in the story.
     This is a story that will give perspective to you as parents and as human beings.  Inspiration at its best.

Inner Net

     I have always realized that there is a bit of a gap between generations of parents and teachers and the kids we care for particularly when it comes to understanding the power of the Internet.  After reading the recent NYTimes Magazine article "When Funny Goes Viral" by Rob Walker, I learned of an inner subculture humor that is bigger than one can image.
     One of the leaders of this highly viewed, viral culture is 22-year old Christopher "moot" Poole.  Here he is in a TED Talk explaining the history of his 4Chan website (Warning: 4Chan has R-rated stuff).



    BTW, the NYTimes article explains one viral, humorous prank known as Rickrolling.  By way of explanation, click here to get an inner net subculture experience and add your view to the 25 million other views!

Brooks v. E-books

     I was amused by the progress of e-books a year ago when I posted Green Apple Books - Kindle v. Book.  I continue to monitor the war between books and e-books, bouncing back and forth:  book . . . e-book . . . book . . . e-book . . . book.
     David Brooks's excellent op-ed piece in the July 8 NYTimes was sobering and brought some research to the table.  Take a few minutes to read his piece "The Medium is the Medium."
    
     Blogger's Note: No subliminal intent to direct you to an electronic copy of the article :)

A Look at Population by Generation

     It is interesting to look at changes in population by generation.  Here is one view:

Lost Generation - revisited	Today -
Generation Y (aka Millennial or Echo Boomer)	1975 to early-2000
Generation X	1962-82
Baby Boomer Generation	Post-WW II-1962
Greatest Generation	WW II and before
Silent Generation	1930s
Lost Generation	WW I and before

   
     Click on this powerful YouTube video entitled "Lost Generation" - the one revisited.  See if you agree with it's powerful message.

World Population

     Here is an interesting excerpt from Sir Ken Robinson's book The Element that talks about world population. See what you think.


     "At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, there was hardly anybody around.  In 1750, there were one billion people living on the planet.  It took the whole of human existence for the world population to reach one billion.  I know that sounds a lot, and we've agreed that the planet is relatively small.  But it's still big enough for a billion people to spread out in reasonable comfort.
     In 1930, there were two billion people.  It took just one hundred and eighty years for the population to double.  But there was still plenty of room for people to lie down.  It took only forty more years for us to get to three billion.  We crossed that threshold in 1970, just after the Summer of Love, which I'm sure was a coincidence.  After that came spectacular increase.  On New Year's Eve 1999, you were sharing the planet with six billion other people.  The human population had doubled in thirty years.  some estimates suggest that we'll hit nine billion by the middle of the twenty-first century."

More on Six-Word Memoirs

     Something like 140-character tweets, a great exercise for students and teachers is to write using only six words.  The NPR article and podcast  "Six-Word Memoirs: Life Stories Distilled" are a great intro to writing 6-word memoirs.  It all began with the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs. 
     Give it a try;  In six words describe your education.


     I originally wrote about this idea on May 1, 2008.

Think Tank Talk

      Looking at professional development with 25 other educators was stimulating, fun, and rewarding and at the same time challenging and like being on a journey where you weren't sure where it was going to end.  During the closing, though, we were able to reflect on what we did accomplish over our 48 hours together.
     After dissecting all of the professional development services NYSAIS offered, we put together those that we felt still work and added activities that were missing, e.g. support for aspiring leaders and an annual gathering for heads of school new to New York.
     With so many energetic, bright people in the same room, you could not help but be professionally developed within the Tank itself.  I know I learned so much.  I will leave you with these excellent, short Derek Sivers TED Talks that were introduced during the session:
     Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement
     Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?