Archive for the ‘Leadership Books’ Category

Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright takes us from the first forms of life to our modern world. It shows how biological evolution and cultural evolution have followed parallel paths from hunter gatherer societies, through the industrial revolution, to the information age. This is a great compliment to the way history is generally taught in schools and belongs in every school library.

Introduction: The Storm Before the Calm

• About fifty years ago John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern invented game theory. They made the distinction between “zero-sum” and “non-zero-sum” games. In zero-sum games, the fortunes of the players are inversely related. In games like tennis, chess, and boxing, one contestant’s gain is the other’s loss. In non-zero-sum games, one player’s good news need not be bad news for the other. It is even possible for both players needs to overlap entirely.
• Wright believes that the paths of evolution and human history have been driven primarily by non-zero-sumness as we evolved from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web. New technologies often permit or encourage new, richer forms of non-zero-sum interactions. At the same time, social structures have evolved to convert non-zero-sum situations into more positive lifestyles.

Part 1: A Brief History of Humankind – 1. The Ladder of Cultural Evolution

• Human culture has evolved. Some refer to early human cultures as savage. They are followed by barbarians, and finally civilization. Some scientists argue against this evolutionary arrow as one that is inevitable. Robert, however, believes that you can see this arrow beginning tens of thousands of years ago and continuing to the present. He also believes that looking ahead you can see where it is going.

2. The Way We Were

• An important concept when it comes to cultural evolution is reciprocal altruism. This is reinforced buy the quote “the best place to store food you can’t eat is in another person’s belly.” Cultures are more likely to advance if there are large animals that can only be subdued when many people collaborate. There are examples in Africa were people cooperated so they could all eat a giraffe.
• One issue causing complexity is cheating. When someone notices that another is not doing their share, they are less likely to grant them a full share of the catch. Bargaining can also add some zero-sum aspect to what otherwise is a non-zero-sum experience. Once the most you will spend on a car and the least the dealer will sell it for is established, the bargaining that takes place is zero-sum even though the sale itself is usually a non-zero-sum deal.

3. Add Technology and Bake for Five Mellennia

• After the early North American people crossed the frozen land bridge from Asia, the ice melted and was replace by the Bering Sea. This created two cultural petrie dishes where cultural evolution could occur. Again we see that places where acquisition of food required cooperation featured more complex cultures. Eskimos living on the coast had to cooperate in order to hunt whales in multiple boats. Capital investment to build boats and division of labor to create harpoon specialists and helmsmen are things we take for granted.
• The Big Man emerges to lead villages and multiple villages. He requires each group to contribute, which can be seen as an early form of taxation. He employs specialists to monitor the environment to prevent over fishing and over grazing. Relying on many villages or groups is also a way to spread risk. Big men had to be well spoken, have a good memory, work to make peace, and lead his followers into battle if necessary.

4. The Invisible Brain

• There should be close connection between population size and density on the one hand and technological and social complexity on the other. Cheap transportation and cheap communication are also necessary. The negative side of population growth is environmental stress. The New World lagged behind the old World by several millennia, which is how far the New World lagged behind the Old World in reaching early technological thresholds, such as agriculture, and early political thresholds, such as chiefdoms. This explains the cultural differences between them when they came in contact with each other.

5. War? What is it Good For?

• While you can argue that wars are non-zero-sum in that they are bad for both sides, lose-lose, you generally see wars as zero-sum when one side conquers and subjugates the other. Regardless, wars tend to produce more complex cultures as villages join for common protection or one side gets larger when they win a war and add the losers to their population.

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On Your Mark: Challenging the Conventions of Grading and Reporting ©2015 by Thomas R. Guskey explains to all teachers why their grading practices are probably wrong for many reasons. If you teach or know teachers you need to share this book. Click the icon at the bottom of any page to get this essential book.

Thomas R. Guskey

• Thomas is Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he began his career in education as a middle school teacher, served as an administrator in Chicago Public Schools, and was the first Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning. He is the author/editor of 18 books and over 200 articles. Dr. Guskey served on the Policy Research Team of the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, on the Task Force to develop the National Standards for Staff Development, and recently was named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association. His books include Developing Standards-Based Report Cards (2010), Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Grading (Ed.) (2009), The Principal as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), The Teacher as Assessment Leader (Ed.) (2009), and Benjamin S. Bloom: Portraits of an Educator (Ed.) (2006).

1. Define the Purpose of Grades

• Guskey finds that there is little in the way of formal teacher preparation that deals with this subject. Teachers, therefore, tend to grade the way they were graded. As for report cards, they are usually cobbled together by a committee that takes what they like from other schools’ work. The process features enough compromise that everyone ends up with report cards that everyone can stand, but that no one really likes.
• If you want to reform your reporting process the first thing you should do is step back and ask what is your purpose. There might be many and it is likely that no single reporting instrument will serve all your purposes well. While schools and policy makers aim for success by all, if that really happened there would be no variation in grades. This doesn’t happen and teachers and test makers set out to sort students and they tend to be very successful. Bottom line is that your reporting process should be aimed at facilitating student learning. Guskey recommends that whatever your purpose is, it should be printed on your report.

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Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative by Sir Ken Robinson explains how much of today’s education is standardized and how we need to make it much more personal in nature. He believes that everyone has a creative capacity and that it’s the schools’ job to facilitate imagination, creativity, and innovation for all. Leaders and teachers in education and all in walks of life should read this book.

1. Out of Our Minds

• As change becomes more frantic, the more creative we need to be. Most organizations recognize this. Unfortunately, while most children think they are creative, most adults think they are not. In this book, Sir Ken takes on why it is essential to promote creativity, the problems with doing so, and how to do it. First, we rely on our imagination to bring to mind things that are not present to our senses. Creativity then is the process of developing original ideas that have value, and innovation is the process of putting new ideas into practice. Everyone has creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them.
• There is a consensus among people in business that they want people who are literate, numerate, who can analyze information and ideas; who can generate new ideas and implement them; and who can communicate clearly and work with other people. Unfortunately, they have worked to impose a culture of standardization and testing that stifles the creativity of students and teachers alike. This may be no surprise as corporate history is littered with the wreckage of companies and industries that were resistant to change. Meanwhile, parents and kids want education to help them find work and become economically independent; and to identify their unique talents that will help them lead a life that has meaning and purpose. Real life is not linear or standardized; it is organic, creative, and diverse.

2. Facing the Revolution

• Ken starts with reviewing the histories of transformative inventions, communications technology, and computers. This gives you a clear notion that the rate of change and innovation is speeding up. It also shows that what was impossible yesterday is routine today. He then takes a look at some possible futures involving things like nanotechnology. In order to deal with the increasing pace of change, Ken feels that our best resource is to cultivate our ability to imagine, create, and innovate. Doing this has to be one of the principal priorities of education and training everywhere. In short, education is the key to our future.

3. The Trouble with Education

• Employers say they want people who can think creatively, who can innovate, who can communicate well, work in teams and are adaptable and self-confident. They also complain that many graduates have few of these qualities. This is not surprising as conventional academic programs are not designed to develop them. We are creating more college graduates than we need and many end up taking jobs for which they are overqualified. The system has intensified programs of standardized testing in language and math with many harmful side effects. Achievement in literacy and math has scarcely budged and subjects viewed as nonessential have suffered. Students who fail to graduate or who graduate but aren’t ready for college suffer even more. It is clearly time to rethink some of our basic ideas about education. Reform is not enough. Education needs to be transformed.

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