Words of wisdom to help you develop an IES-approved philosophy of life:

The Gung Ho Game Plan:

• The Spirit of the Squirrel: Worthwhile Work
  
  
  • Knowing we make the world a better place.
  • Everyone works toward a shared goal.
  • Values guide all plans, decisions, and actions.
  
  
• The Way of the Beaver: In Control of Achieving the Goal
  
  
  • A playing field with clearly marked territory.
  • Thoughts, feelings, needs, and dreams are respected, listened to, and acted upon.
  • Able but challenged.
  
  
• The Gift of the Goose: Cheering Each Other On
  
  
  • Active or passive, congratulations must be TRUE.
  • No score, no game, and cheer the progress.
  • E = mc²: enthusiasm equals mission times cash and congratulations.



This approach to building a successful workplace is excerpted from the book:

K. Blanchard and S. Bowles, Gung Ho! Turn On The People In Any Organization, William Morrow, New York, New York, USA, 1998 (ISBN: 0-688-15428-X).


• This book describes by example how the Gung Ho method can be applied to almost any workplace. It is a short and easy one hour read - well worth the time.
  (A. Wayne Bennett: 08/27/02)



To anyone with kids of any age, or anyone who has ever been a kid, here's some advice Bill Gates recently dished out at a high school speech about 11 things they did not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good politically correct teachings created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Things Not Learned in School:
-Bill Gates


Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it.

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

(Bill Gates via J. Hamaker: 12/4/00)



Think Deeply      Speak Gently
Love Much         Laugh Often
Work Hard         Give Freely
Pay Promptly     Pray Earnestly
and Be Kind  
(Frank Childs via A. Wayne Bennett: 08/07/00)




Education: What you have after you forget what you learned. (provided by Wayne Bennett: 08/07/00)

A teacher affects eternity: He/She can never tell when His/Her influence stops. (M. Albon, Tuesdays with Morrie via W. Bennett: 08/07/00)

Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. (Vince Lombardi via A. Ganapathiraju: 10/21/99)

You shouldn't fear failure, because failures are valuable experiences. If everything you do works out well and you have no failures, it means you're not trying hard enough. Similarly you cannot crave success. If you can get the fear of failure and the craving for success out of your system, it will leave you with a clearer mi nd to concentrate on the core of the problem in front of you. (Wilson Greatbatch - inventor of the cardiac pacemaker: 09/01/99)

IES students have had to endure my many stories about my unforgiving high school chemistry teacher, my Latin teacher and his box of yardsticks, and of course, the football coach/school disciplinarian. The following article is an excerpt from the Fall'98 issue of the Alumni Wick, a publication for the Fenwick High School family (where a young Terminal Man was interned for four years starting in 1971).


What Makes Fenwick "Fenwick"?
-James J. Quaid, Principal



Several years ago, when I was Dean of Students at Fenwick, I took a graduate level course at Loyola University. A professor who had been at Loyola for years taught the class. He also had been a principal for the Chicago Public Schools and was a St. Ignatius graduate. Members of the class included many high school administrators working on doctoral degrees or additional state certification.

We shared ideas about the problems facing our schools and how we addressed them. During a discussion of tardiness among students, one of my classmates explained in great detail how her staff kept track of "tardies" at her school, so that after six tardies, the student would be given a detention. She told us that para-professionals hired by the district helped her enforce the school rules. This elaborate and expensive program impressed most of the members of the class, but not the professor.

Near the end of the discussion, he turned to me and asked, "Now, Jim, how does Fenwick handle this?" I answered, "Students who arrive late for class receive a detention."

The professor asked, "You mean there are immediate consequences?"

"Yes," I answered.

He then noted, "So you are clear that this behavior is not acceptable and respond to it immediately?"

"Yes," I answered. "We have work to do. The students have a lot to learn, and we can't make matters like tardies major issues because being on time is a given."

He then asked what kind of problems Fenwick had with tardiness, and I answered that we had nowhere near the problems anyone else in the room had described. I also noted we spend less time, money and effort dealing with the issue.

(The article continues to talk about the infamous Fenwick dress code. I almost missed graduation because my hair was too long. The day we went in to get our schedules and bought books before school officially started was always fun because we could show off our beards and long hair grown over the summer. The disciplinarian used to smile and remind us that he would soon have his day to get even.)

(J. Picone for James J. Quaid, Principal, Fenwick, 10/13/98)




The following words were written on the tomb of an Anglican bishop in the crypts of Westminster Abbey:



When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But it too seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now as I lay on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world.

(anonymous via J. Hamaker: 09/09/98)




Curriculum overhaul by committee is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: it probably calmed some nerves, but..." (S. Saddow: 05/02/98)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. (Oliver Wendell Holmes via J. Hamaker: 04/29/98)

People fall into two classes when it comes to inheriting money: those who don't need it and those who don't deserve it. (restated by J. Pote: 04/03/98)

A dictionary may be sufficient for settling Scrabble disputes, but it's not necessarily a good guide to usage. (B.J. Wheatley: 02/17/98)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (George Bernard Shaw via A. Ganapathiraju: 07/06/97

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. (J. Baca: 01/31/97)

Follow success with success. Follow failure with change. (J. Picone: 06/28/96)