If you haven’t already seen it, I want to highly recommend you watch the critically acclaimed documentary called Waiting for Superman. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, Waiting for Superman, received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, as well as Best Documentary Feature at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.
Documentary filmmaker, Davis Guggenheim, explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation's children, and explores the principle differences between “dropout factory” public schools and some charter schools, many of which are in some of the worst neighborhoods.
On the public school side, dreadful statistics are presented in a series of animated episodes. He chronicles decades of diminishing national reading and math scores, America’s low standing when compared with other countries, the high dropout rate in urban public high schools, the tenure system (guaranteed by union contract), and the fact that it is against union rules to pay excellent teachers a higher wage than inferior ones. Apparently, many public school principals rotate lousy teachers within a district, in pessimistic shuffles known as the Dance of the Lemons, the Turkey Trot, and Pass the Trash.
On the flip side, despite receiving public funds (as well as much private support), charter schools can hire non-union teachers and adopt their own curriculum and standards. In these environments, they can hire and fire at will, reward good teaching, hold longer school days, and exercise high expectations. What a concept!
What does this have to do with real estate?
I did some additional research and came upon an article, by Ellen Galinsky, who had personally spent time interviewing some of the best education innovators. In this article, you will readily find principles that relate to the best managers and agents in real estate. Here is some of what she has to say:
“About a year ago, I spent time interviewing and filming Geoffrey Canada and his staff at the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) for Mind in the Making. Since Canada is one of the 'stars' of Waiting for Superman (as he deserves to be), I feel compelled to share my observations from that visit as a brief glimpse of what it will take to fix education.
To foster good teaching—it takes an adult learning environment where there is accountability: When I visited the HCZ, Canada told me that they look for teachers with a 'no excuses' attitude: Everybody who comes in to work for me promises me they know these kids are poor and the families have problems. However, Canada finds that if a teacher isn’t doing well, he or she is likely to begin blaming the difficulties in these children's home lives. Canada says to these teachers: 'You knew [the realities of these children’s lives] when you took the job—you said you understood that was the deal—now you’re making excuses.' If you allow people to make excuses, it becomes the kid’s fault, the parent’s fault, the community’s fault...versus those of us who are getting paid! That said, the teachers at HCZ have a great deal of support for improving, including opportunities to learn more about children’s learning and teaching from other more experienced teachers, from specialists, and from colleges and universities which they are encouraged to attend. I had the strong impression that HCZ was a learning community, where everyone, at every level, including Canada, was trying to learn more. And that learning environment has become contagious, spilling over onto the children.
To foster good learning environments for the children, there needs to be high expectations and accountability, but mistakes are seen as part of the process of learning. In its brochure, Canada describes the ultimate goal of HCZ: 'getting our kids into and through college.' HCZ makes sure that this goal is visible and reinforced daily. For example, in the Promise Academy elementary program I observed, the children line up in the hallway every morning and state this goal as their creed. Canada says: If kids are saying their creed, 'I will go to college; I will succeed,' if their parents are thinking that, if the teachers are thinking that, then you’ve got thirty percent of the work done. In the HCZ, the children are expected to develop a good work ethic, put many hours into school, and to understand that there are times when learning won’t be fun. The staff also know that it is impossible for children to succeed all of the time, which is why I like the rating system used there—not A, B, C, D, and F but 1 to 4, where 1 is an 'oops.' The superintendent of HCZ, Daryl Rock describes their philosophy: We give [children] the freedom to make mistakes. We teach our kids that failure is not a way of labeling who you are—it’s just a way of identifying what you don’t know and what you need to put more effort into. When kids understand that, they’re not hesitant about trying something, because if they fail, it’s not a reflection on them. That just tells them: 'This is an area we need to work on.' To put this in another way, the children aren’t just learning content, they are learning life skills, including how to take on challenges.”
Which attitudes are you and your company adopting toward productivity?
Furthermore, if you’ve been searching for a worthy cause for individual volunteering or better yet, to rally your office/company around, you might want to visit the Waiting for Superman website for action opportunities. This could be what you’ve been waiting for...
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