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By Kyle, September 1, 2009 4:17 pm

Queen – Flash

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After five wonderful years of living on beautiful Rimpau Blvd. in Mid-City Los Angeles, I’m moving. Or, to say it more accurately, I’ve moved. My new abode is still close enough to work (1.7 miles, as opposed to the previous 1.4) to earn the scorn of friends and family who suggest that walking (or minimally, riding my bike) would be more appropriate.

I promise to put up some pictures of the new place once it doesn’t look like a train wreck, but what was perhaps just as interesting this past Saturday as getting into a new home, was the process that went along with the new home.

On Saturday, myself and a team of friends completely moved all my stuff in a total of 90 minutes. Yep, 90 minutes, including loading into a 17’ U-Haul, driving to the new place, and unloading all the stuff into the apartment. I had even hoped to buy my helpers lunch but it was 10:30am when we finished and no one was even hungry.

So how in the world did this record-fast move actually happen? After thinking about it a bit, and listening to others, basically, it boils down to two elements that were central to Saturday’s move. organization and teamwork.

Organization: Prior to the day of the move, I had packed all my stuff up in boxes and placed those boxes in a corner in my living room. And while the living room was certainly cluttered, it made it incredibly simply to say to folks, “All of this stuff here, goes”. Once the process had been greatly simplified, everybody jumped in immediately and got straight to work. Easy.

Teamwork: The second element that was central was the fact that I had 6 additional people helping me move, and yes, I did bribe them with Starbucks, donuts, and the possibility of lunch, it was largely their amazing willingness to jump on in and be a part of this that made it happen. No one was forced, no one was coerced, and these folks have freaking amazing character!

Anyway, why should you (or anyone else) really care? Well, this theme of organization and teamwork has kept coming up in my mind during the past week as some of the centrally important elements in anything, be it school, work, or whatever. When I get frustrated with stuff at school (and rant about it on this blog), it’s usually due to a lack of either organization (the leaders not leading) or lack of teamwork (the leaders simply dictating rather than building trust and buy in).

Hmmmm… let’s see if I can keep these in mind as I go forth this year!

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By Kyle, August 24, 2008 8:29 pm

What I’m listening to right now: The Zombies: I’ll Call You Mine. While certainly not one of the most commercially or critically successful bands of the 1960s, the Zombies were definitely one of the most influential.

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There are several downsides to blogging, one of which is that once you start, you might (gasp!) actually gain an audience, which expects, nay, demands, high-quality, frequent, and insightful comments about any and every event. In an effort to appease said audience, I offer up the following:

Florida. Iowa. Rock ‘n’ Roll Thai. Sean and Sara Watkins. Sunset Junction.

Moving on…

Yesterday, the word of the day was “sustainability”, yet not within the usual context of global warming and environmental consciousness, but rather in the context of schools. One of the greatest problems that is faced by Cochran Middle School (and likely many others within LAUSD) is a lack of sustainability. What exactly do I mean?

This is what I mean. Cochran middle school has managed, despite many flaws, to attract a number of very high quality teachers. These teachers, my colleagues, inspire kids, organize field trips, help improve their scores, invite special guests for assemblies, and even push some toward admission in some of the top schools in Los Angeles. “What’s wrong with this?”, you might ask. Nothing, except for what inevitably follows. These teachers leave, and when they do, many (though not all) of the programs they’ve started leave with them. The successes that our school has is so dependant upon the personalities and the above and beyond giving of some of our teachers that there is no sense of momentum. No sustainability. In essence, what we’ve managed to do is to re-re-re-re-invent the wheel.

I wonder as I begin my 5th year, how in the world Cochran can begin to create a culture of success that is actually sustainable past the tenure of any particular teacher. How in the world do we do this? Honestly, I have no idea, but at least the question has now been asked.