Yearly Archives: 2004

Integrity in Business and in School

Posted inEntrepreneurship, School / Education1 Comment on Integrity in Business and in School

A couple people I don’t know at my school cheated on a test and now they’re busted. Word spread like wildfire mostly due to the high profile nature of the students and stupidity of the act (writing answers on arms and legs). People talked about the appropriate disciplinary action that should be taken in light of the fact that "everyone cheats." What?! I haven’t, and won’t. I think I’m in the majority but it’s shocking how many people openly admit to doing all sorts of dishonest things just to get the grade.

Integrity is a big deal in education but probably the hardest to talk about. A few years ago we had an "honor committee" and it was a complete joke. It’s very tough to talk about morals and values and integrity and honesty and what all those big words mean.

About a year ago I got into a sticky situation involving integrity but in my business. I had stumbled across something that, if I exploited it, could have easily done amazing things for my company. My "stumbling" was a little bit stumbling, a little bit curiosity, and a little bit technical savvy. In the ensuing weeks I had a big internal battle whether I should act on my findings or leave it. My chief advisor told me "Ben, you can rationalize it any way you want. But you know, and I know, that this should go no further. If you acted on it, it would be wrong. There’s no other way to put it." Looking back, despite the "What ifs…" I’m glad I made the right ethical decision.

As always, I turned and continue to turn to books to help me understand these thick issues. I reccomend Stephen Carter’s Integrity for a very thorough and well-written look at integrity that tries to answer this big question: Why do we care more about winning than playing by the rules?

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IT Directors: The Gap Btwn Adults and Kids on Technology

Posted inSchool / Education, Web/Tech6 Comments on IT Directors: The Gap Btwn Adults and Kids on Technology

The IT Director at my school asked me to speak at a meeting of Bay Area private school tech directors on the topic of the growing disconnect between young people and adults (specifically educators) when it comes to technology. I spent 20 minutes there this morning and didn’t have much profound to say. In fact, I was so exhausted from this past week (tests, games, meetings, calls…repeat 3 times) that I went into “rhetoric” mode. I’m fortunate to be able to sound articulate. I’m fortunate to be able to mask any nervousness and deliver a speech or presentation without fidgeting or stumbling (for the most part). The upside to this is obvious. This morning for example I didn’t prepare really at all and can’t remember much. But words came out, they sounded ok, and people were impressed I think. “Rhetoric mode” is rare and a sign that I need to recharge my batteries.

A couple interesting points discussed – one person said how kids of today don’t realize how public they live their lives when they have blogs or photos online etc. I said “BS. Kids know.” After a little elaboration I added that through my blog I am striving for a lot of transparency and honesty with the outside world. The guy responded “Ben, you’ve chosen to live your life like that. None of us in this room ever did that when we were young.”

Another asked if blogs, IM, email, etc. has contributed to the decline in writing skills. Again, for the sake of argument, I disagreed (discussions like this go nowhere when everyone agrees) and said that the more writing you do, the better it gets. Period. (I actually don’t agree with this. I think IM and email has contributed to a decline in writing and grammar at all ages. But I’m sick of kids saying “I don’t know how to spell anymore because of computers. Come on, that’s a personal choice.”)

Overall, my key point was that everybody (adults) seems to be throwing their hands up and declaring that the “understanding gap” btwn adults and Millenials on technology is huge and, thus, unsolvable. It’s not that hard of a problem. It would be great if an entrepreneur set out to solve it.

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Entrepreneurial Synonyms for "Make Progress"

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After a four hour meeting today with our Board of Advisors, I can reflect on entrepreneurial synonyms for “we just need to keep on making progress.”

“We’ve got to keep on shlepping away.”

“We need to keep doing the blocking and tackling.”

“We’ve gotta pound away, every day.”

“If we keep plugging away…”

“It’s a slog, but, again, we’ve gotta keep slogging away.”

“We’ve got to push, push, push.”

Progress is what this is all about. Make progress against common metrics. People will be happy if progress is being made, despite the slogging, blocking, shlepping, and plugging that may go along with it.

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What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?

Posted inBooks, School / Education4 Comments on What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated?

That’s the title of my latest book read. Alfie Kohn compiles a variety of essays on education, standards, grading, “and other follies” into a interesting book.

He starts with his most provokative essay titled the same as the book. He asks “What is purpose of education?”

Ned Noddings of Stanford urges us to reject “the deadly notion that the schools’ first priority should be intellectual development” and contends that “the main aim of education should be to produce competent, caring, loving, and lovable people.” Alternatively, we might wade into the dispute btwn those who see education as a means to creating or sustaining a democratic society and those who believe its primary role is economic, amounting to an “investment” in future works and, ultimately, corporate profits. In short, perhaps the question “How do we know if education has been successful?” shouldn’t be posed until we have asked what it’s supposed to be successful at.

He continues by discussing the qualification of an “educated person”:

How much do you have to know about neutrinos, or the Boxer rebellion, or the side-angle-side theorem? If deep understanding is required, then a) very few people could be considered well educated, and b) the number of items about which anyone could have that level of knowledge is sharply limited because time is finite. On the other hand, how can we justify a cocktail party level of familiarity with all these items – reminiscent of Woody Allen’s summary of War and Peace after taking a speed reading course: “It’s about Russia.”

Next, he cites Deborah Meier in her list of the importance of developing five “habits of mind” in schools: the value of raising questions about evidence (“How do we know what we know?”), point of view (“Whose perspective does this represent?”), connections (“How is this related to that?”), supposition (“How might things have been otherwise?”), and relevance (“Why is this important?”).

He concludes the chapter citing Dewey: To be well educated, then, is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends.

He then dives into a blistering critique on standarized tests, grading, the costs of overemphasizing achievement, and more. While I agree with most of his stuff, I do take exception with one assertion in the chapter “Confusing Harder with Better.” He says “No student should be expected to meet an academic requirement that a cross section of successful adults in the community cannot.” I disagree. If this were the standard, how do we achieve progress? How do we stretch our minds deeply to find out what we want to do with our lives?

If you are interested in new thinking about education or have kids in schools, check out Kohn’s work.

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Leadership: Twelve Nervous, Sweaty Teammates. Obnoxious Fans. Two minutes.

Posted inEntrepreneurship, Sports2 Comments on Leadership: Twelve Nervous, Sweaty Teammates. Obnoxious Fans. Two minutes.

This past week at a basketball tournament in the Peninsula I made my debut after 6 weeks on the DL due to an ankle sprain. The season is just getting underway, and it was our 2nd game of the season. We were clearly playing a better, more athletic team. And with not all our guys healthy, we got outplayed. Suprisingly, our opponents had tons of student fans (“6 man club”) making lots of noise and yelling un-repeatable things from the stands. For me, they must have known I had a torn ligiment in my ankle (“33 has a weak ankle, break his ankle!).

It’s halftime, we’re down by 10, but still have a shot to stay competitive. The coach says his bit, and now everyone turns to me and my co-captain for final words before we head back out to the court from the locker room. Before starting, I look at everyone. Some are dejected, some are pumped, some are just fidegty and nervous. We hear the ear-piercing loud rap music playing in the gym. The locker room is getting stuffy. This is the ultimate place to exude leadership. There is absolutely no pararellel to this situation in the business world. I know that each word I say and the inflexion of each word is critical.

I choose to harkon back on a theme I presented early on: “Everyone needs to give 100%. The scoreboard is not important now. We need to improve and get better each and every game this preseason. We cannot be scared. We need to take our man to the basket if we are getting pressured. We need to run our offense through and not get flustered when it breaks down. Everyone needs to play big, needs to play extra-aggressive. Crash the boards. Cut the margin to 5 by the end of the 3rd quarter. Let’s do this. We can do it.”

Then, I do something I wasn’t sure was a good idea did it anyway. I single out three players by name in front of the team who I didn’t think were working hard enough or who didn’t have their head in the game. People debated the next day whether this was an effective strategy. One of the players did indeed pick it up the second half. Another player didn’t, and asked after the game what specifically I was referring to. “Going 100%” is obviously up to interpretation.

I can’t talk anymore because I’ve lost my voice from yelling so much earlier. We break up and head back out. We ended up losing by a healthy margin but I was content with our effort and excited that I could make it back on the court.
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The following game in the tournament I came down and severely sprained my other ankle, the very day my other ankle was finally close to 100%. Honestly, I’m pretty devastated. I anticipate I will be sidelined for 4-6 weeks and the season is starting. Words can’t express my anger and sadness. After all I just went through in rehab on my other ankle, to go through it all again is a huge, huge setback. I’m confident I will find a productive way to channel this anger, but for now, my emotions are overriding everything else.

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