I have found this on-line. It is so much fun that I would like to put it on my blog! Hope you enjoy it.
1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
8. Be more or less specific.
9. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)unnecessary.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's
highly superfluous.
14. One should never generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words
however should be enclosed in commas.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth
earthshaking ideas.
25. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not
needed.
26. Eliminate famous quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate
quotations. Tell me what you know."
27. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist
hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it effectively.
28. Puns are for children, not for groan readers.
29. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
30. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
31. Who needs rhetorical questions?
32. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
And finally...
33. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Designing Change or Start Designing Conversations?
When change is designed in an organization, there is an assumption that someone somewhere knows better or more than someone else. When we design conversations, we create the space for change to emerge without directing it—it occurs as a result of ownership derived from knowledge and connection to what really matters. Change actually emerges from there. This space — not mine, not yours, but ours — is less threatening, less directive and more representative of a mutual ownership and commitment to what is required.
In an era where everybody is as intelligent as everyone else, no one anywhere knows better or more than people inside the organization. In order to create continuous learning, we need a stable platform of processing increasing complexity and ambiguity. The platform created through conversations is the foundation for organizational agility — the capability to adapt readily and willingly to rapid change and uncertainty.
In essence, the key missing ingredient in all models derived from mechanical or inorganic methods of viewing business reality, are the connections that have to occur between the component parts.
Everyone in organizations today needs to be involved in strategic conversations —conversations from and with all perspectives. The person most efficient and trained to create that conversation is a facilitator. The facilitator helps to forward the integration of personal and business reality.
To produce organic change, which is far less costly over time than top-down change, we must allow leadership (learning and teaching capabilities) to carry the weight of change through effective conversations and interactions.
The design is not about change. The design is about creating a system to carry the continuous natural adaptation — to support discontinuous change - through connected conversations around what really matters.
In an era where everybody is as intelligent as everyone else, no one anywhere knows better or more than people inside the organization. In order to create continuous learning, we need a stable platform of processing increasing complexity and ambiguity. The platform created through conversations is the foundation for organizational agility — the capability to adapt readily and willingly to rapid change and uncertainty.
In essence, the key missing ingredient in all models derived from mechanical or inorganic methods of viewing business reality, are the connections that have to occur between the component parts.
Everyone in organizations today needs to be involved in strategic conversations —conversations from and with all perspectives. The person most efficient and trained to create that conversation is a facilitator. The facilitator helps to forward the integration of personal and business reality.
To produce organic change, which is far less costly over time than top-down change, we must allow leadership (learning and teaching capabilities) to carry the weight of change through effective conversations and interactions.
The design is not about change. The design is about creating a system to carry the continuous natural adaptation — to support discontinuous change - through connected conversations around what really matters.
Is Dialogue Education subversive teaching? Yes it is!
I am reading this book and I want to share the power of it!
Almost 30 years ago, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote a book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity. This book is about subversive teaching, the conscious act of teaching with the "inquiry method". It pull heavily from Marshall McCluhan’s work around the idea that the medium is the message, and that merely labeling ideas ("Oh, this is just the discovery method") diverts our attention from the complex processes that are at work.
They explain:
In contrast to a "production" approach to teaching, the inquiry method focuses on the process, rather than the product. Thus, a good teacher is one who realizes the "answers" are not in the books, but within the learners themselves. Doing and experiencing are the key ingredients to real learning, and how and what we learn does not happen sequentially and especially does not happen for all learners in the same way at the same time.
A subversive teacher, then, is one who firmly realizes these "truths" about learning. Despite the system’s focus on product (predetermined curriculum and test scores), the subversive teacher actively attempts to redesign the structure of the classroom to focus instead on process. Some of the attitudinal characteristics of such "teachers in action" as listed by Postman & Weingartner include:
The relationship they describe between teaching and meaning seems to go at the depth of the work of every educator.
Mr. Postman, Mr Weingartner: thank you so much!
Almost 30 years ago, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote a book called Teaching as a Subversive Activity. This book is about subversive teaching, the conscious act of teaching with the "inquiry method". It pull heavily from Marshall McCluhan’s work around the idea that the medium is the message, and that merely labeling ideas ("Oh, this is just the discovery method") diverts our attention from the complex processes that are at work.
They explain:
"The inquiry method is not designed to do better what older environments try to do. It works you over in entirely different ways. It activates different senses, attitudes, and perceptions; it generates a different, bolder, and more potent kind of intelligence. Thus, it will cause teachers and their tests, and their grading systems, and their curriculum to change. It will cause college admissions requirements to change. It will cause everything to change." (1969,p. 27)
In contrast to a "production" approach to teaching, the inquiry method focuses on the process, rather than the product. Thus, a good teacher is one who realizes the "answers" are not in the books, but within the learners themselves. Doing and experiencing are the key ingredients to real learning, and how and what we learn does not happen sequentially and especially does not happen for all learners in the same way at the same time.
A subversive teacher, then, is one who firmly realizes these "truths" about learning. Despite the system’s focus on product (predetermined curriculum and test scores), the subversive teacher actively attempts to redesign the structure of the classroom to focus instead on process. Some of the attitudinal characteristics of such "teachers in action" as listed by Postman & Weingartner include:
The teacher rarely tells students what he thinks. Generally, he does not accept a single statement as an answer to a question.
He encourages student-student interaction as opposed to student-teacher interaction, generally avoids acting as a mediator or judging the quality of ideas expressed.
He rarely summarizes the positions taken by students on the learnings that occur. He recognizes that the act of summary or "closure" tends to have the effect of ending further thought.Generally, each of his lessons pose a problem for students.
His lessons develop from the responses of students and not from a previously determined "logical" structure. (Postman & Weingartner, 1969, p. 33-36)
The relationship they describe between teaching and meaning seems to go at the depth of the work of every educator.
"As soon as students realize that their lessons are about their meanings, then the entire psychological context of schools is different. Learning is no longera contest between them and something outside of them, whether the problem be a poem, a historical conclusion, a scientific theory, or anything else. There is, then, no need for the kinds of "motivation" found in the conventional Trivia content. There are few occasions for feelings of inadequacy, few threats to their sense of dignity, less reason to resist changing perspectives. In short, the meaning-maker metaphor puts the student at the center of the learning
process. It makes both possible and acceptable a plurality of meanings, for the
environment does not exist only to impose standardized meanings but rather to
help students improve their unique meaning-making capabilities. And this is the
basis of the process of learning how to learn, how to deal with the otherwise
‘meaningless,’ how to cope with change that requires new meanings to be made."
(p. 97)
Mr. Postman, Mr Weingartner: thank you so much!
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