Posts from — July 2007

I have been exploring the world of audiobooks this summer and downloaded a great one called The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s a short book which makes for a short audio program - only about an hour and a half. The concept of the book, though not earth-shattering, is certainly worth taking to heart.

The book attempts to put to rest the old adage, “Winners never quit and quitters never win,” by countering that winners quit all the time. It’s just that they quit the right things in order to focus their energies elsewhere; namely in areas where there is more of an opportunity for success.

“The dip,” as he refers to it in the book is something with which most of us are already familiar. We’ve heard it called the “implementation dip” among other things. The idea is that anything we do that is new — from taking up snow skiing to enrolling in med school — starts out exciting. But eventually, the excitement wears off and things get tough. Persevering through the tough parts is what separates the best from the rest. The best have the tenacity to hang in when the going gets tough.

The other focus of the book is knowing when to quit. Quitting, Godin contends, is sometimes necessary in order to re-focus energy on getting through “dips” in other areas. Godin calls these “dead end” areas cul-de-sacs.

Throughout the book, I kept shaking my head at how plain and simple the advice seems, yet how hard it is to implement in practice. How many programs / initiatives / rituals / rules do we see in our schools that are not moving us forward academically, but that remain in place because they’ve “always been there?” On the other hand, how many new programs and initiatives are put in place and then either abandoned or scrapped because we don’t see miraculous results in one or two school years? We abandon them as soon as we hit “the dip.”

And that’s the rub. Doing the triage. Choosing which of the initiatives we can drop in order to re-focus our efforts on those that promise to bring results we’re after.

For further reading, as well as some motivational, feel-good stories about people and companies who have made it through their own dips, check out Seth Godin’s The Dip blog.

Maybe this is long overdue. Then again, maybe it’s taken me a year of reading and six months of blogging to get here. Out of context, this may all appear somewhat random, but indulge me, won’t you?

I love technology. But I don’t care if you do. What I do care about is student engagement; connecting kids with learning. Teachers, engage kids in your content area and you’ll see higher scores on state tests, improved attendance, and fewer incidents of discipline. Administrators, let’s engage our faculties and staffs in our school visions and we’ll have a motivated team of educators who know where they’re headed with fewer gripes in the staff lounge. Do it with a powerful lecture, a slick wiki, a hike in the woods, a well-written blog, an overhead projector, a Socratic seminar, or an abacus. It doesn’t matter. Just do it. The medium isn’t as important as the message.

Technology motivates me. But so does a well-executed lecture. If tech tools aren’t your thing, figure out what is and go with that. If you’re passionate about it, that passion will come across to your kids (or faculty!). They may not become as passionate as you, but it’s a much easier sell.
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