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Why Are We Called Committed Sardines?

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Nicky and I live a very busy and full life of travel and talk, so whenever we start feeling overwhelmed by our schedule, there’s a place we like to visit. It’s the Monterey Aquarium in Monterey, California – the world’s greatest aquarium in our opinion. We were there recently, and after we paid for our tickets, we walked inside. On the right-hand side, there’s a gift shop where they play a video about the Blue Whale.

The Blue Whale is largest and at 190 decibels, the loudest mammal on Earth. A Blue Whale weighs more than a fully loaded 737. It is the length of 2 1/2 transport buses put an end to end. It has a heart size of Volkswagen Beetle, a tongue 8 feet long; and it weighs more than 25 elephants. A baby Blue Whale is estimated to gain 15 pounds an hour in its first year of life. A very little known fact about the Blue Whale is that it is so mammoth that if it is swimming in one direction, and wants to turn and go in another direction,  it takes a Blue Whale 3 to 5 minutes to turn 180 degrees. There are a lot of people in education today who draw a strong parallel between the Blue Whale and our existing school systems. Both seem to take forever to turn around.

But if you walk past the video on the Blue Whale, turn to the left and walk on for about 50 yards, you come to what we consider to be the absolute center piece of the aquarium. It’s a ten-story, all glass tank, inside of which the aquarium staff has placed many of the creatures that are indigenous to the Monterey Bay. If you’ve ever read John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, you will know that a century ago every year in the inner Monterey Bay, there used to appear schools of fish – actually they were schools of sardines  -that were the length, width, and depth of city blocks. Schools of sardines that had a mass, not of one, two, or three Blue Whales, but of a thousand.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it the only thing that ever has…Margaret Mead

But there’s a fundamental difference between the way a Blue Whale turns around – three to five minutes – and the way a school of sardines turns around – instantly. How do the sardines do it? How do they know when to turn? Is it ESP? Is it Twitter? Are they using Facebook or Snapchat? Because we were curious, we walked up to the tank and pressed our noses against the glass and stared at the massive school of sardines that was swimming around inside.

At first, the sardines appeared to all be swimming in the same direction. However, after a while, as our eyes adjusted to the light, we began to realize, slowly at first, that at any one time, there would be a small group of sardines that were swimming in another direction – and when they did this, they caused conflict, discomfort, and distress.

But finally, when a critical mass of truly committed sardines was reached – not 50 or 60% of the sardines who wanted to change – but 10 to 15% who truly believed in change – the rest of the school instantly turned and followed. This is exactly what has happened over the past few years with our perspectives about things such as tobacco, the unacceptability of drinking and driving, the emergence of social media, or concern about climate change. Each one of these shifts in attitude was an overnight success that was years in the making even though they seemed to happen overnight.

 

Our question is – who amongst you is willing to become a Committed Sardine? Who amongst you is willing to swim against the flow? Who amongst you is willing to swim against conventional wisdom, against our longstanding and traditional practices and assumptions about education – and begin to move our schools, begin to move our students, our communities and our nations – from where they are to where they need to be? That’s why we’re called Committed Sardines!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it the only thing that ever has…Margaret Mead

The only thing worse than not being able to see, is being able to see and having no vision…Helen Keller

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Social Media Uncategorized

Social Media – the New Tobacco

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The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they are friendly nerd gods trying to build a better world. And admit they’re just tobacco farmers in t-shirts selling an addictive product to children because, let’s face it, checking your likes is the new smoking. A recent 60 Minutes exposed what is called brain hacking. 
 
How everything Silicon Valley develops is purposefully designed to make us feel compelled to check-in constantly. To make you want to use it in particular ways and for long periods of time because that is how they make their money. every time they check their phone, users are playing the slot machine – what did I get? To hijack people’s minds and form a habit. That’s right! Apple, Google, Facebook – they are essentially drug dealers. And then I thought, where have I heard this before – no I realized, oh yeah on 60 Minutes. 
 
The tobacco industry was in the nicotine delivery business. That is what cigarettes are for. Cigarettes are a delivery device for nicotine. Yup! It was never about smooth tobacco flavor – it was about the nicotine and the other drugs the tobacco industry deliberately put in to make it addictive. It was not enough just to sell you a product – people needed to be addicted to it. 
 
Every time you check your phone you are pulling that slot machine handle because you might get a reward, a text, a like – we all know the feeling, we post a picture on social media and when the likes pop-up it floods your brain with gratifying dopamine. Facebook purposely holds back the likes sometimes so that you will keep checking. 
 
How come my friends did not like that picture of my soup? What is wrong with me? Wait until we see this picture of my water bottle. It’s come to this – you do not exist until you get a 🙂 or a thumbs up or a giant thumbs up. This is why the average person interacts with their phone over 2600 times a day. It wants all your attention – all of the time. It is not a service, it is Glen Close in Fatal Attraction.  
 
A third of Americans check their phones during meals. 19% of them check it in church. Pedestrian deaths are way up because people in crosswalks looking down are getting run over by drivers looking down the whole damn country is looking down. Phillip Morris just wanted your lungs, the app store wants your soul