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In helping struggling learners be strategic learners, are we not leveling the educational field for them just as Marx attempted to do in regards to capitalism with communism??? Yikes! This should generate some dialogue. Thoughts on the comments on pages 201 - 205; Chapter 4 in general.

Seems to me, as we work to scale up, we need to ask ourselves:

What do we keep?

What do we let go?

What is our understanding of SIM, CLC, education today, current tools and technology, collaboration, and competition?

Your thoughts?

While reading through this section, I was continually amazed at how these convergences related to our school change work and CLC. I love the words from Rajesh on page 191…”It’s not about ruling anybody. There is nobody to rule any more. It’s about how you can create a great opportunity for yourself and hold on to that or keep creating new opportunities where you can thrive. I think today that rule is about efficiency, it’s about collaboration and it is about competitiveness and it is about being a player. ”

What do these convergences say to you?

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- CRL staff

As I reflect on the 10 forces that flattened our world, several things jumped out at me.

The first is the idea of a person’s value-add. This really struck me especially as I look at the partnership we are building with Teachscape. Teachscape can digitize components of PD such as delivering information and do it with consistency, fidelity and do it economicaly. However, those cmponents of PD that require the “human touch” is the value add of SIM PDers - the coaching, partnership building, problem-solving, lesson studies. This value-add is one of the components that sets SIM apart from other models and programs.

Fattener #3 was interesting. What really struck me is a statement on pg 76 “Standards don’t eliminate innovation, they just allow you to focus it. They allow you to focus on where real value lies, which is usually everything you can add above and around the standard.” I thought about this for awhile and looking at the standards as education standards, I realized that while so many educators feel standards tie them down to what they can teach, these standards truly free them. What do you think about this statement?

UPS and SIM…Flattener #8. To me, we and UPS have a lot in common. I would love to hear what others think…is SIM and our approach like UPS? How are we alike? What can we learn, if anything, from UPS?

Jean Piazza