“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” ~Anne Lamott

The Blueberry Story

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 at 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.

"What we see depends on mainly what we look for."--unknown

‎"It's not enough to just fix the problem. You have to fix the source of the problem. That's why any good dentist doesn't just fill your cavity, he hunts down and strangles Willy Wonka." -- Stephen Colbert

"Makeup is not beauty. Death does not mean you lost. Fear is not a lack of faith. True strength can not be taken away. You cannot choose your miracles. Faith can't always cure you. Death is not an end. And you can never say I love you too many times! How can we not believe in miracles? Your life, your light, your fight, your faith, your hope, your happiness, your beauty, your battle, was all too great to seem real. It was a miracle that someone so amazing could be in my life, could love me. You have changed my life forever, I will never forget your faith." --unknown

We have the choice to use the gift of our lives to better this world.-- Jane Goodall

This says it all---

http://wiselivingblog.com/2011/02/debunking-the-whole-life-purpose-thing/

A gift of twenty-four unlived, unexplored hours.
And if I can stack one good day on another and another,
I will link together a good life.....(by Cat Cuipa who was my 8th grader 3 decades ago).

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?--Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes things don't go after all,
from bad to worse. Some years muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives;the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Sheena Pugh (b.1950)

‎"It's not a good idea to be well adjusted to a sick society." ~ Krisnamurti

Beautiful memorial to Don Loomer this afternoon. On the way home I told my FIL I wished I could have the consuming faith that some of the older people have, and he smiled and said, "It will grow on you. Don't worry about it"--As always he is very wise.

Most humorous line heard this week: A member of a committee reacting to the long debate over an inconsequential matter said: "Friends, we have just had the labor pains of an elephant and given birth to a mouse."--unknown

‎"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate" ~ Carl Jung

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different." --Oprah

One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.
Dr. Carl Gustav Jung

Autobiography In Five Short Chapters

Chapter I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in this same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in... it's a habit... but,
my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

- Portia Nelson

Truth

The truth you resist is the battle you fight.-unknown

America

"When you grow up in middle America you are inculcated from the earliest age with the belief - no, the understanding - that America is the richest and most powerful nation on earth because God likes us best. It has the most perfect form of government, the most exciting sporting events, the tastiest food and amplest portions, the largest cars, the cheapest gasoline, the most abundant natural resources, the most productive farms, the most devastating nuclear arsenal and the friendliest, most decent and most patriotic folks on Earth. Countries just don't come any better. So why anyone would want to live anywhere else is practically incomprehensible. In a foreigner it is puzzling; in a native it is seditious. I used to feel this way myself." - Bill Bryson

Prayer

Prayer is the practice of sitting calmly in God's lap and placing our hands on his steering wheel - Max Lucado

Courage

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying. ..’I will try again tomorrow.’" Unknown

Time

‎"Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted." -- John Lennon

Locks

I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. ~Elayne Boosler

All Mankind

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine

No Right to Kill

"Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder" - Percy Bysshe Shelley