Motivation SUCKS!

Got a note on the AP Stats list from John Burnette that put me on to the Demotivatiors site. The Poster above and the lead paragraph below the quotes from one page says it all, but a couple of the de-motivational quotes are too funny to pass over:

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"AMBITION: The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very very badly."

CHALLENGES: I expected times like this – but I never thought they'd be so bad, so long and so frequent.

CLUELESSNESS: There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.

FEAR: Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.

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The lead paragraph says... "MOTIVATION. Psychology tells us that motivation- true, lasting motivation- can only come from within. Common sense tells us it can't be manufactured or productized. So how is it that a multi-billion dollar industry thrives through the sale of motivational commodities and services? Because, in our world of instant gratification, people desperately want to believe that there are simple solutions to complex problems. And when desperation has disposable income, market opportunities abound.


AT DESPAIR, INC., we believe motivational products create unrealistic expectations, raising hopes only to dash them. That's why we created our soul-crushingly depressing Demotivators® designs, so you can skip the delusions that motivational products induce and head straight for the disappointments that follow!



E.L. Kersten, Ph.D.


Founder and COO

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Education by Design

I wrote recently about Bill McDonough and the idea of Designing for what we want to leave behind. I mentioned that I questioned if the educational system we have matches the dreams we have for the students we pass through our system (and sometimes we seem to do little more to them than pass them through). A few days later my wife called my attention to this video/slide-show by Bill Strickland. I was repeatedly amazed by what he has achieved in the most depressed areas of Pittsburgh. I loved one line, “The only thing wrong with poor people is that they don’t have any money….. and that’s a curable condition”. He offers a vision of what education could look like if it was designed by people who believed in the capacity of people to be great.

Bill Strickland has a simple message: "Harness the Power of Believing in People". His work has brought him a MacArthur Genius grant, a Grammy award, an invitation to lecture at Harvard University, and a seat on the board of the National Endowments for the Arts. With a message as simple as it is profound, he strikes a universal chord, mesmerizes audiences and brings them to their feet in appreciation. Give people the tools they need, treat them with respect, and they will perform miraculous deeds. From a sleeping bag on the second floor of a dilapidated building he built one of the most extraordinary organizations in America, employing and training thousands. Let Bill teach and inspire you to see the real person, and harness the power of believing in people.

A Design Problem?

Saw a video of architect designer William McDonough, author of "Cradle to Cradle". It is kind of long, about 45 minutes, but well worth the time. He was introduced as :” a ground breaking educator, former dean of architecture at the University of Virginia, a professor there, founder of the Institute of Sustainable Design and Commerce, Professor at large at Cornell, Chairman of Second Nature, bringing sustainability curricula to universities, authored the Hanover Principles on Sustainable Design. Received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, Zero Population Leadership Award, and Time magazine named him a Hero of the Planet.”


He had some nice comments about Thomas Jefferson, perhaps as a result of McDonough having been a Dean the University of Va. and living in a home Jefferson designed. He talked about Jefferson’s tombstone, shown above,which Jefferson designed. Note that he omitted being President of the United States.

McDonough points out that Jefferson talks about his legacy, what he left behind, not what he did while he was here.

I'm a teacher, as some of you know, and I kept wondering as I listened, If education was really designed to be about what we leave behind, rather than what we are doing while we are here, would we do it this way? Somehow, I doubted we would.

He had some great thoughts about intention, and the rather pointed quip that, “planning is most effective when it is practiced in advance.” For me, I guess the most important question he asked, was “When do we all become indigenous people?” If we are planning to stay here, on THIS earth, we better PLAN to stay here.

Crazy California Republicans

Ok, my friends will think I've gone over to the dark side with that California republican logo there, but I found a note on my statistics group from Floyd Bullard, a great math teacher in North Carolina, and he sent a link to a really humorous piece on NPR by TV writer Rob Long. You can read the whole thing if you want, but I loved listening to it...
especially the line which goes, "In California, it is possible to drive an electric car with your third wife for a stop at the holistic tea house run by your gay son and his husband on the way to the polling place, where you will vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger because he's a conservative, damn it, and that's what this country needs. And if you get that, you get California; if you don't, you don't. Ok, I admit it, I don't.

Give a listen here