Remember These

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MLK Jr. on speaking out on things that matter

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Doug Conant on toughness and tenderness with employees

Toughness on issues, tenderness with people

Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup via Tony Schwartz's article The Only Thing That Really Matters

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Teju Cole talking about "First World problems" as a problematic expression

I don’t like this expression ‘First World problems.’ It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.

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Gandhi on saying 'no' with conviction

A no uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a "yes" uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

- Mohandas Gandhi

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Audre Lorde on the radical act of caring for herself

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

- Audre Lorde

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Construction and antiquity

Every Wednesday I attend construction meetings as we work to complete our new high school. Today I heard the most wonderful phrase today that made me think about both how little and how much construction has changed in the last few centuries:

"The tin knocker is working on exiting the dog house."

Yes, we have a trade on site known as the tin knocker, and there is a structure in place known as a dog house. I am learning a lot each week.

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Technology as a Paradigm, Not a Tool - quoting Nishant Shah

It is time to perhaps articulate the digital not as tools and technologies, but as a paradigm that can be helpful in unpacking the biases and presumptions in our traditional understanding of education systems.

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be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity

...be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity

Horace Mann - commencement address at Antioch College, 1859. Now repeated to each class.

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Business plans are for suckers...says Jason Calacanis

PPPS - Yes, I'm still angel investing. Looking for five killer ideas to invest in this year. Tip: Only suckers write or send business plans. Real founders send URLs, mockups and apps.

via launch.is

Jason Calacanis via his tech newsletter discussing what he's looking for when investing in technology startups.

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Jeff Stibel on "Why I Hire People Who Fail"

We don't just encourage risk taking at our offices: we demand failure.

via the Harvard Business Review

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The plural of anecdotes is not data

The plural of anecdotes is not data

Jim Temply of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools

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Jöns Jacob Berzelius on why science should be messy

A tidy laboratory means a lazy chemist.

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Tony Schwartz on valuing people beyond the hours they put in

We have made a mistake by thinking that the way to value somebody is by the number of hours they put in instead of the value they generate. If you hold them accountable to generating a certain amount of value, and you measure them by the value you create, then you are shifting the focus to what really matters.

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Joel Klein on what will happen to schools in the next 5 years

...we'll move from the classroom as the locus of the learning experience to the individual child as the focus of the learning experience.

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Adam Urbanski on change vs. staying the course

"If we always do what we’ve always done, we will get what we’ve always got" - Adam Urbanski

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Sara Winter on how racism negatively impacts white people

All the white people I know deplore racism. We feel helpless about racial injustice in society, and we don't know what to do about the racism we sense in our own groups and lives. Persons of other races avoid our groups when they accurately sense the racism we don't see (just as gays spot heterosexism in straight groups, and women see chauvinism among men). Few white people socialize or work politically with people of other races, even when our goals are the same. We don't want to be racist - so much of the time we go around trying not to be, by pretending we're not. Yet, white supremacy is basic in American social and economic history, and this racist heritage has been internalized by American white people of all classes. We have all absorbed white racism; pretence and mystification only compound the problem.

via psychologytoday.com

Another post on microagressions that deals with the challenges faced by "oppressors."

This post connects with a lot of Tim Wise's work on how racism harms white people. His book White Like Me does a great job spelling that out.

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Racial Microaggressions defined by Derald Wing Sue and David Rivera

Racial microaggressions are the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated. These messages may be sent verbally ("You speak good English."), nonverbally (clutching one's purse more tightly) or environmentally (symbols like the confederate flag or using American Indian mascots). Such communications are usually outside the level of conscious awareness of perpetrators.

via psychologytoday.com

If you are not familiar with the concept of microagressions, the article where this quotation comes from is a helpful primer.