Slide – Focus on the critical few

16 Responses to “Slide – Focus on the critical few”

1. 

   Louise Maine Reply April 11, 2009 at 9:08 am

   Nice! this made my day!

2. 

   Justin B. Reply April 11, 2009 at 11:35 am

   Its a nice thought, but isn’t it counter to the entire system of American education? The point is the many, not the few?

3. 

   Tom Roth Reply April 11, 2009 at 11:40 am

   From an admitted “Defensive Teacher” this is the type of “Leadership” that creates my defensiveness. I – you. I – you. I – you. I – you. “I” as the administrator – “you” as the teacher. “I” will tell “you” what to think, what to do, and how to do it. There needs to be a “We.”

4. 

   Tiki Martin Reply April 11, 2009 at 11:47 am

   In my job, all of my students are the “critical few”. It’s why they’re over there. I like this quote better when it’s applied to something like the zillions of standards. I simply can’t apply it to people in practice.

5. 

   Scott McLeod Reply April 11, 2009 at 12:07 pm

   Wow! A bevy of comments on this one. I didn’t expect that!

   I guess you can decide what this applies to in your personal/professional life. The 80-20 rule tells us that focusing on 20% of the people, processes, standards, etc. gets you 80% of the desired outcome:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

   SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS HAVE THE ABILITY TO FOCUS.

   @Tom Roth: I didn’t create this with an I/you mentality. In fact, I think it’s foolish to take such an approach. Leaders that don’t know how to facilitate distributed/shared leadership within their organizations are nearly always destined for failure. “We” – not “I” or “you” need to determine where our collective focus should be. But there should be some focus…

   @Justin B: The “point” of common schools and public education may be success for the many, but the way to get there is not to ignore the need for focus.

   @Tiki Martin: Agreed. There is no such thing as the “insignificant many” when it comes to students.

6. 

   Allison Reply April 11, 2009 at 12:17 pm

   Tiki Martin – thanks for your perspective. I spent a lot of time staring at this slide, trying to figure out a way to understand this that didn’t seem to imply that we should ignore the majority of our students and just focus on a few of them. Your comment really helped change the way I was viewing this.

7. 

   Tom Roth Reply April 11, 2009 at 7:45 pm

   Sorry – I meant for that comment to go to the “What She Says V. What They Hear” post.
   Tom

8. 

   Russ Reply April 11, 2009 at 8:32 pm

   You agreed with Tiki that there is not an “insignificant many” in reference to students, but I’m not sure what else I am to infer from the picture of crayons. I must be missing the metaphor if the crayons aren’t students.

9. 

   Zack Allen Reply April 11, 2009 at 10:56 pm

   There is a related fishing adage that states, “90% of the fish live in 10% of the water.” Indicating that the key to successful fishing is knowing where to fish. We have a lot of responsibilities, curricula, standards, etc. Should the 10% most related to our mission be where we spend 90% of our time “fishing”?

10. 

    mssigman Reply April 12, 2009 at 11:25 am

    I think and 80/20 focus could more helpfully be applied to focusing our instruction on the 20 percent of the curriculum and skills that will most successfully benefit our students. I definitely do not think that only focusing on 20% of our students is a good idea

11. 

    Trevor Reply April 12, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    I think maybe there’s an unintended link between the “crayon” post and the “defensiveness” post underneath it. So I turned the intersection of these two ideas around in my head a bit…

    http://pluggedinteacher.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/interesting-juxtaposition/

12. 

    Barry Reply April 13, 2009 at 8:22 am

    What about “No Crayon Left Behind”?

13. 

    ande warren Reply April 13, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    why is it always the ‘students’? why can’t it be the ‘teachers’? or the ‘administrators’?

    i like what scott has originally with the picture and saying. i say ‘spot on’

    too much attention is placed on the negative aspects and trying to engage, pull and drag the others along… (the many who do not want to change)

    why not focus on the positives, the brilliant colors, vs. the significant many, blah black and white… or creativity, brilliant colors, vs. the dictatorship type instruction, blah black and white…. so many different comparisons than just students and standards…

    momentum is gained by leveraging the human traits in people (adults and kids).. joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith….

    after awhile the culture changes, the philosophy changes, the blahs leave and the brilliant colors are bountiful…

    those b’ball fans out there.. look up John Woodens Pyramid of Success and what he calls traits of a good leader.

    cheers to scott, with this beautiful pix on soooo many different levels!!

14. 

    afoxen Reply April 27, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    Love this slide! I immediately interpreted the image to signify the teacher’s role in guiding students toward valuable online resources to support a particular learning objective, while minimizing all the garbage out there on the Web.

    Can I “borrow” this image (with attribution, of course) for my upcoming presentation on Web 2.0 and Internet filtering?

15. 

    Scott McLeod Reply April 27, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    Glad you like the slide! FYI, everything I do is available under a Creative Commons license:

    dangerouslyirrelevant.org/copyright.html

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