Chipotle Mexican Grill & Charter School

November 11, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

We still hear from time to time that public schools could learn a few things from successful private businesses. If so, why not Chipotle Mexican Grill?

Chipotle is a rather brilliant concept. The food is fairly high-quality, and I’ve been 27th in line and still eating within ten minutes. The menu is somewhat limited, but with five or six choices at each of the four steps shaping your dining experience, it at least feels like great variety is in play.

The staff undergoes substantial training before they’re allowed to actually make or serve food. The ingredients are organically grown and the meat naturally raised. (I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I believe it involves little chicken playgrounds and fun cow activities for the young.)

There are higher quality restaurants with greater variety, of course. Usually these are local treasures, often unique and almost never part of the major chains. There are cheaper and faster places to eat, also – but they’re not usually as good.

But what Steve Ells did is pretty amazing. He started small, tried different formats, swapped out a few ingredients, then reproduced the most successful combination on a large scale. All the benefits of sit-down dining and the economies of scale normally found in eating establishments represented by cartoon characters or creepy plastic-headed men. It’s a charter school movement dream come true!

For the analogy to work, of course, we’d need to make a few minor adjustments. First and foremost, diners heretofore will be required to eat at Chipotle almost exclusively. A special few may be allowed to go to Abuelo’s or Chuy’s, but there aren’t enough of those to go around – so maybe some sort of lottery would have to be involved.

Everyone else MUST eat there, and every day – whether they want to or not. The staff will have to deal with these unwilling customers and be fully accountable for their dining happiness and success. There are vegetables in those pans for a reason, young lady!

Also, Chipotle will need to make some modifications for customers who may need gluten-free choices, or who can’t carry their own trays, or who eat more at breakfast than lunch, or who don’t like Mexican food. Some will want extra chips or different beans, some all rice all the time. Several need their food pre-chewed – all without changing the price, speed, or quality of service. You can’t reasonably expect everyone to eat the same way, can you? You can only expect them to all eat at the same place under the same format served by the same staff with the same resources.

Duh.

Employees at Chipotle will be held to higher standards than currently the norm. Customers will undergo regular physicals, including checks of their weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, stamina, heart-rate, and anything else we can think of – including whatever might be trending that year. Locations unable to demonstrate consistent weight-loss and fitness-gain will face staff reductions and reduced ingredients until they improve.

Individual workers whose customers fail to grow taller, stronger, and healthier (whether eating during their shifts or not) will be publicly exposed and placed on plans of improvement. All servers are expected to bus tables, sweep floors, study cookbooks, and otherwise contribute during their off hours. They’ll be paid slightly below minimum wage and regularly berated by Gordon Ramsay look-alikes, most of whom have been speaking at restaurant conferences and writing cookbooks far longer than they spent asking whether customers preferred black beans or guacamole.

A percentage of resources currently poured into running the various Chipotle Mexican Grills around the country will be redirected to a bureaucracy responsible for overseeing these things. These sundry minions’ expertise will be based largely on them having eaten at a Chipotle at some point, or if not, having eaten somewhere else at some point in their lives.

Other than those minor tweaks, I see absolutely no reason the model can’t be replicated and mandated in every neighborhood of every state across this grand land, regardless of the wants, needs, or dietary requirements of this or that little region. All people, regardless of background, need picante. Period.

I’ve run this by a few people, and they refuse to share my dream. They argue I’ll ruin the restaurant altogether, or that my suggestions are completely unrealistic and can’t possibly be serious. To be honest, I’m shocked at the reaction. The manager at my local Chipotle heard only a fraction of it before laughing and walking off.

Clearly he’s terrified of a little accountability. Typical.

I’m A Cow

November 2, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I have a class Twitter account I use to remind students of various stuff, link to appropriate educational or amusing things, etc. They follow me there, I follow them back to facilitate the occasional question about grades or other non-public issues (you can only direct message if you follow one another).

Scrolling yesterday, I saw a tweet from one of my best & brightest. “I am a cow.” If you know teens & Twitter, self-loathing is a thing, but this one struck me hard. No one should feel that way, no matter their body type, but this particular young lady is petite and adorable and all those things they care about at that age.

How do we fight this objectification & demeaning? Should I respond, I wondered – no, there’s nothing appropriate I could say. I was distraught, however – especially since we’d just watched Miss Representation in class. Our treatment of young women in this country has GOT TO —
.

.
Her next tweet was a pic of her and a friend prepared for a Halloween event. She was a cow. In a tutu.

By Any Means Necessary

October 28, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity…
(“The Second Coming”, W.B. Yeats)

My historical heroes are all pretty standard – Joan of Arc, Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln. All three were murdered as a result of their convictions, but they were more than simply creatures of ‘passionate intensity’. They were strange animals in their day who rejected easy answers for the possibility of better ones. None were content to merely overcome those in their way – they sought something richer… they pursued mutual enlightenment. Maybe mutual respect.

Even if they killed you while doing it.

Joan demonstrated repeated personal mercies and grace even for her enemies, all while leading the French army to slaughter those filthy English. Post-Mecca Malcolm sought collaboration – or at least detente – from those he with whom he disagreed – even some he found culpable in existing wrongs. Lincoln was a man of great conviction as well, but regarding people and their viewpoints, values, and druthers, he was quite broad-minded for his time. Consider this bit from his Second Inaugural, given a few months before his death:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes…
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Not as rousing as “We’ve almost got ‘em, now let’s CRUSH the Motherf*ckers!” but it served his purposes.

See, Lincoln was always looking past the current strife to the solution, the next step, the reconciliation or improvement. He did not wish to confuse the struggle with the goal. It was how he practiced law, how he navigated interpersonal conflict, and certainly how he approached the Civil War.

Of course he wanted to win – believing profoundly that his cause was just – but he kept his larger purpose in view. He wanted the Union preserved, the nation whole. When the opportunity came to free slaves as part of that, all the better – the Maker thus working out the parts we cannot while demanding of us all that we can.

I want my students to emulate this. I want them to strive to understand why the hell people believe and do the weird, stupid stuff they believe and do. Most of it, of course, isn’t actually weird and stupid to the people doing it, and even when it is, it’s still worth a little analysis before we attack. It’s too easy to mock, vilify, or dismiss those who stray too far from our socio-political comfort zones. It’s too easy to reduce important complexities to ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Complicating my idealistic little group hug is the fact that in any field of dispute – science, ethics, education reform, etc. – there are unjust players. Someone’s always trying to rig the game, beat the system, manipulate the field for personal payoff. It’s naïve to pretend all voices are genuine. Sometimes the man behind the curtain is a pretty good wizard, but a very bad man.

Further complicating my utopian dreamland is the reality that not all ideas or understandings are equally true or even equally valid. They’re definitely not all equally useful. Just because I understand the skepticism about climate change by my friends further right doesn’t mean they’re correct. It doesn’t even mean the truth is “somewhere in the middle.” They may be dangerously, delusionally wrong – but it’s still better if I ‘get’ where they’re coming from. Show a little respect.

I humbly suggest that energy spent trying to understand the potential validity of viewpoints, belief systems, or courses of action we find distasteful, rather than spent ranting against them, has at least three advantages:

(1) They might have a point. If they’re not entirely right, they may not be entirely wrong, either. Likely they see something you’ve missed, or see it differently in a useful way. People who surround themselves only with supporters end up weird at best and corrupt at worst (think Justin Bieber or Kim Jong-il).

I’m a big fan of asserting antagonistic things to smart people and taking notes as they eviscerate me. I don’t keep many friends this way, but I learn a great deal.

(2) The better to persuade you with, my dear. If the goal is to implement policy you find most correct, or promote beliefs you consider important, you’re unlikely to win over opponents through your clever use of Willy Wonka memes to mock their most fundamental values. The sort of ‘red meat’ we throw one another when in likeminded groups can be emotionally satisfying, but it’s not particularly useful in building consensus.

(3) The Universe punishes vanity. Whether you put your faith in the Bible, history, science, or James Cameron movies, the fall which pride cometh before is a cantankerous b*tch, and neither you nor I are excluded from her twisted mockery.

Many things stirring passions today are more complicated than they seem. The ‘War on Terror’ is an easy example – the President all but admitted going in to this most recent bombing campaign against ISIS or ISIL (or whatever they are this week) that we can’t win this way, we can’t win other ways, and we sure as hell can’t not try at least some of the ways. All roads lead to WTF – we’re just trying to prognosticate the least-worst details.

Anything involving social mores and legal precepts is subjected to the worst sort of grandstanding on all sides – “I don’t believe government should legislate morality!” Yes you do. You just have different things that make you go ‘ick’ than whoever you’re mad at this time. “I want to see America return to the values on which it was founded!” No you don’t. We had some great ideals but made horrible compromises with the norms of the day. You’d be miserable, and quite possibly burned at the stake.

“Well I just don’t see how anyone could think -“

Exactly. Therein lies the problem. Because you really should.

School reform is almost as complex as these other areas, although with less stuff blowing up and fewer citations of Old Testament law involved (except of course by Senator Brecheen, who wants Common Core supporters hunted down and killed with swords).

Higher standards, whatever those are, might be delusional or harmful or wrong, but it’s hard to make the case that state-by-state standards are always much better. Mass testing is just evil, but complete lack of accountability doesn’t seem to have consistently led to much greatness in the past. There are some charters doing some interesting things, and I’ve even met ACTUAL TFA-ers leaving their all in the classroom every day trying to reach kids no one else seems able to reach.

I’m not suggesting all parties are just, or even sincere – merely that our ongoing outrage suggests a simplicity I don’t think is there.

Unless it’s MY outrage – my outrage is pretty damn ON most of the time.

I respectfully suggest we might see a bit more clearly and accomplish a bit more if we dial back our conviction enough to allow some uncertainty or complexity into the conversation. Maybe not everyone is either good or evil, not all ideas either stupid or obvious. Maybe we can maintain passion for our goals – which probably have to do with our students and the future and buckets full of flaming starfish – without taunting the Universe to go all karma on us before we can reach them.

“Extra” Curriculars

October 27, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

It’s difficult to question things we don’t realize we assume. For example, few of us ponder why we easily trust our family doctor to diagnose pretty much ANY part of our body, internal or external, except our mouth. Our mouth, it seems, is so darned complicated and unique compared to, say, our aortic valve or epidermal sheath, that only SPECIAL DIFFERENT OTHER TYPES OF DOCTORS can even LOOK at this oral outlier.

The sole exception involves gagging you with a stick while you say ‘aaahhhh’ – a breach of etiquette required to view your throat (which doesn’t even count).

We don’t really think to question it. That’s just how it is, was, and always shall be. Except it’s not. It hasn’t been THAT long since your local barber would be as likely to pull your troublesome tooth as trim your sideburns. It was all above-the-shoulders care – why limit yourself?

School is rife with these sorts of assumptions. We simply MUST shuffle students from boxed area to boxed area in slightly-under-an-hour increments. We have roughly the same number of kids in each class, one subject per teacher, and at some point papers of various kinds must be placed in baskets to “grade.” Eventually, all experiences must reduce to a number between 1 – 100 and one of five letters, none of which can be ‘E’ because that’s stupid and wouldn’t tell us anything – unlike, say, ‘C’.

It’s really rather bizarre.

But these things are at least being discussed, and challenged. The sense that we’re missing something isn’t new, but the subject does seem to be heating up lately, thanks to a variety of issues – Common Core, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, anything involving Bill Gates, Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan, or Michelle Rhee. If those don’t get your panties in a wad, I could add TFA, charters, vouchers, or Virtual Embezzlement… those oughta do it.

The ease of utilizing blogs and social media probably hasn’t hurt. Teachers can rant and share and question with a comfortable combination of anonymity and familiarity – and with peeps from around the edu-niverse. I myself have a lil’ blog which is more or less education-focused. You should check it out sometime.

Something I don’t hear questioned much, though, is the nature of our ‘core curriculum’. Sure, the specifics vary from district to district, and grade to grade, but it’s generally assumed that all students need Math, English, Science, and – time permitting – some kind of History or Social Studies. Ideally they’ll get a little Art, something Computer-ish, maybe even whatever it is we call “Home Ec” these days. But the Big Three-and-a-Half remain constant across an otherwise fractured edu-nation.

And if students behave, and keep the right letters on their weekly personal-reduction-to-a-point-value report, they may be allowed to play sports, or participate in drama, or band, or debate, or cheer, or dance, or some other ‘extra-curricular’.

We call them that because they’re things going on OUTSIDE the curriculum – outside of the presumably important, useful, REAL purpose of school stuff.

That’s the thing I’m surprised we don’t question more often. What makes these things ‘outside’, compared to, say… Physics? Algebra? State History? What makes some classes ‘curricular’ and others, well… ‘extra’?

If you’re failing Algebra, you can’t play Basketball. But if you’re failing Basketball, they don’t stop you from going to Algebra until you get your game back on track. This little motivational system only works one way.

Why?

Algebra is important, but so are athletics. If our goal is “college, career, and citizenship ready,” Basketball is far more likely to help you with the latter two. Algebra wins for the first, but mostly that just means that doing math qualifies you to do harder math.

Most of these kids are never going to be professional athletes. But neither are they likely to become professional mathematicians, or chemists, or historians, or novelists. The skills and knowledge gained in each of those realms nevertheless serve a larger good. They help to form a fuller, better, hopefully somewhat happier person.

The sorts of life skills learned and practiced in a strong band, drill team, or competitive speech program are just as applicable to career and personal success as anything covered in English class. If we’re hoping to produce team players not afraid to take risks, our girls’ volleyball team is way ahead of, say, AP Physics.

The value of individual effort and responsibility combined with teamwork and group accountability – the drive to be the best one can be while maintaining appropriate sportsmanship – overcoming adversity – recognizing that struggle produces progress – the power of setting both short-term and long-term goals – adapting quickly and capably when things don’t go according to plan…

Are these things really so much less important than learning to factor binomials or identify regions in which the Afton point seems to have replaced the Clovis?

I’m not dismissing the importance of content knowledge in a variety of areas – I love my subject and if granted my boon would elevate it to the number one priority for all school children everywhere in the world. Heck, I even value learning for learning’s sake – it’s fun, and fulfilling, and just plain good for us. It also makes us less useless, and hopefully a tad less odious.

But I’m just not convinced our current caste system of subjects is nearly as obvious or necessary as we think.

I sat in yet another #STEM breakfast recently and heard extolled the glories of project-based learning with clear assessments whose rubrics were known in advance and a process built on collaboration – what the rest of us might call ‘band rehearsal’, ‘theater’, ‘competitive debate’, or ‘football practice’.

In this case they meant mostly science-y stuff, which is all wonderful and good. But we already have classes where students do those things. They’re just not allowed to keep doing them unless they pass Science.

Are we currently turning out a generation so fluent in algebra, world history, chemistry, and grammar that it would be tragic to risk any of it in exchange for a few life skills? Are we so certain that kid who finds his calling in Theater Production would have totally aced that Old Man and the Sea quiz if he hadn’t been wasting his time doing something that might lead to employment in a field he loves?

I’m not suggesting we do away with the cores. I AM suggesting we expand our idea of what constitutes a ‘core subject’ and do a better job exploring to what extent stuff kids actually want to know and be able to do can be utilized as more than a carrot or a stick to navigate them through the things we think they simply have to know whether they want to or not.

I am suggesting we’re vain to think we know exactly what will or will not be ‘good for them’ long term, especially when their gifts and inclinations suggest otherwise. I am suggesting that we cannot equip a generation to be flexible and adaptable and useful by cramming them all into the same Enlightenment-era curricular mold, enforced through a factory-model school system.

I’m suggesting we question our assumptions.

Related Post: First Class, or Coach?

Related Post (From “The Disappointed Idealist” Blog): Academic vs. Vocational – Why Does It Need To Be A Choice?

Advice for the Next State Superintendent of Public Instruction (OK)

October 18, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I should begin by saying that this post is in no way intended to advocate for one candidate or the other in this race. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little political editorializing – but this mini-trove of wisdom is here for THE WINNER, whoever that may be. If you want to talk substantive issues in depth, search Twitter – that’s what they do there. Or I guess you could go to HIS WEBSITE or HER WEBSITE and read up on the candidates yourself.

(We’re not actually big fans of that here in Oklahoma – the whole ‘inform yourself before you take a vitriolic stand on something’ – but, whatever. You’re reading this blog – that makes you informed enough, in my book.)

But Mr./Ms. NewSupt – let me help you out. You’re walking into a no-win situation in many ways, but that’s OK. We’re teachers and we know all about devoting time and energy to futile efforts. In order to help smooth your transition to power and better navigate the rocky political shores of #oklaed, I’ve compiled a handy dandy guide for your pedagogical and popular success.

This is not a countdown – you may move these around as you see fit and the blinding wisdom stays just as blinding. There’s no cost for these, either. I’m not seeking patronage or fiscal gain. This is for you. And our teachers. And Oklahoma.

This is for… *sniff*… THE CHILDREN.

(1) Pay attention to our teachers. There’s an enormous pool of talent and experience scattered across this state, much of it combined with the sort of missionary zeal necessary to teach here on purpose. Actively seek input from professionals actually doing the work in and around the classroom, and from the many different types of districts and classrooms you’ll find here. Strong leadership means being willing to listen, and learn – maybe even change some of the assumptions you had going in.

(2) Don’t pay too much attention to teachers. I love my profession and my peers, but there are some real weirdos in the mix, and they tend to be loudest. Besides, none of us can quite agree even what we think school is for – you can hardly expect us to have a coherent message how to best make it happen. Strong leadership means doing what’s best for the kids, long-term – not what’s popular with the entrenched majority. Sometimes teachers need to be willing to listen, and learn – maybe change some of the assumptions they’ve held for so long.

(3) High expectations lead to high achievement. You remember all that stuff about the Zone of Proximal Development from teacher school, yes? Kids are wonderfully gifted at doing everything possible to convince us that they’re the most helpless, hopeless, clueless little darlings on the planet, exerting all of their available resources merely to mouth-breathe. They want us to think they’re beyond stupid – so we can’t possibly expect much of them – and to their credit their methods are impressively varied and resolute.

But they’re not stupid. They’re loaded with all that potential we talk about even when we don’t always believe it. Many are actually rather brilliant.

No trophy or grade or diploma is nearly as rewarding as actually accomplishing something. Anyone who plays a sport, an instrument, or a video game knows this – the learning happens in the struggle, and the struggle is part of the reward.

(4) You can’t grandstand about ‘high standards’ and beat kids up with bubble tests and think it solves anything. Your constituency wants simple answers and ‘strong leadership’, but kids are complicated. Learning is weird, and a few platitudes won’t cut it. Some of the darlings entrusted to our care spend their two mites daily just trying to survive – emotionally, physically, socially, whatever.

The ones we too-easily reward need to be pushed and challenged and made uncomfortable; many of those we ignore or condemn need to be fed or hugged or listened to. It’s hard to give substantial damns about Algebra II when your world seems to be caving in on you, and our concerns are not always their concerns. “I’m sorry about your real life, but I assure you in three years this boring bit of otherwise irrelevant knowledge will be PRETTY IMPORTANT for your post-secondary pursuits, so let’s try to focus, shall we?”

Let’s not pretend that Social Darwinism or any other thinly veiled ‘–ism’ is actually just ‘high expectations’.

(5) With great power comes great responsibility. The Epistle of James (that’s in the BIBLE, for you non-Okies who might be reading) says that teachers will be judged more harshly for the positions they hold. You are in that position a hundredfold. James goes on to suggest that anyone who can control their tweets has self-control in all things. Be aware that everything you say, post, or do, sends ripples across more time and space than you’d ever intend.

(6) You’re not that important. Don’t get too full of yourself, just because you have a fancy title and a little power. The state legislature is still necessary in order to do REAL damage to schools and students across the state (which they’re all too happy to do), and no matter what the reaction you receive when you show up somewhere, most of us go about our day doing pretty much whatever we want without actually thinking about you one way or the other.

(7) Throwing money at a problem doesn’t fix anything. Tons of statistics show little correlation between $$$ expended and student achievement. We can’t pretend it’s all about money. It doesn’t buy happiness, and it’s a poor substitute for hard work and good decisions.

(8) Starving out our schools is absolutely positively guaranteed to make everything worse. Tons of statistics show the correlation between adequate investment in students NOW and the fiscal impacts – positive or negative – in a decade or two. I’m sorry the state is poor, but we MUST have funding. We can’t pretend it’s not about money – funding and resources are ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS major factors.

People who don’t think money matters always have lots of money which they hang on to as if, you know… it matters.

(9) Don’t limit yourself to people you like. Good people do stupid things. Counterproductive things. Evil things. Assume the best intentions of others – even when they’re annoying – unless they make it absolutely impossible to do so. Give those who disagree every reason to assume the best of you as well. The most irritating sometimes provide the most essential challenges or insights.

Resist the temptation to take the cheap, melodramatic road. Anytime we slide into ‘us’ and ‘them’, it’s over. At that point we can only ‘win’ and ‘lose’ – we can no longer create, solve, or celebrate. At the same time, your good intentions are no substitute for good decisions. The road to now is paved with good intentions, and they won’t cut it any longer. We need right actions.

(10) Question everything. Are this set of standards or that set over there really THE KEY to Oklahoma’s success? If we can just find the right curriculum to post, are our biggest problems basically solved? Are “Oklahoma Values” something we wish to define and defend, or just something that sounds anti-something else? Is everything local wholesome and wise… everything national evil and dark? Are those of us raging against ignorance really SO willing to base future-shaping decisions on whether or not listing Thomas Jefferson in Paragraph 19 Subsection C is THE primary cause of Americans joining ISIS?

Maybe we can’t hold back the muddled darkness, but need we embrace it so eagerly?

Surround yourself with people who challenge you and won’t accept on faith every word you utter with dramatic conviction. Move boldly ahead, but with inner fear and trembling. Respect the possibility that you’re so very wrong – or that if you’re right, you are insufficiently so and it simply won’t be enough. Treat this position not as a stepping stone to something greater, but as a calling in and of itself.

Sure that’s melodramatic – but internal framing like that is about the only thing keeping any of us in this profession ’round these parts.

You’re representing thousands of teachers and kids and possibilities and shortcomings and breakthroughs and nonsense and hope. Chances are good no matter what you do, we’ll all have turned on you in a matter of months and will repeatedly mock and condemn you. Don’t expect us to feel too badly for you on that count – remember, teachers here. That’s our daily existence.

I hope you find this list helpful and insightful. Really, if you stick to these ten, you should be good. I am of course available for further insight and wisdom should you require my services. The link to subscribe to my blog should be up there on the right-hand side of the page somewhere.

Good luck.