Wegmans - Please The Pleasers

Oh please, certainly you have heard of Wegmans. Wegmans ranks #1 on FORTUNE Magazine's List of 100 "Best Companies to Work For.” Check it out: (http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/PressReleaseDetailView?langId=-1&storeId=10052&catalogId=10002&productId=399511). Why am I bringing it up? Perhaps the top down focus currently cherished by superintendents and educational boards across the country is a bit misplaced. Employees involved in the solutions have a stake in a successful outcome. Teachers forced to read from banal scripts and drilled in the way to teach an insipid reading program is not a useful approach to win over those who are teaching or those who are being taught. A successful program should sell itself. That’s why I like the Wegmans example; employees taking ownership and delivering a quality product and superior service with an exemplary passion-pleasing demeanor. Not because it’s their job, rather it’s their life, love, and joy to do it. A pleasing meaningful occupation is a motivator for success far more than a critical, high stakes one, where failure is punished rather than transformed into triumphal victory. I am rather pleased that I am not mandated to fulfill a scripted visual arts program. If something isn’t working, and in life many things don’t, a quick fluid fix is needed. If you are locked into a scripted program, you are locked into all the shortcomings and failures that it brings.

 Art lends itself to creative fun solutions. The subject sells itself. It yells out, “Hey you! Let’s have some fun!” Art could teach itself. Scientific experiment time… Objective: Create. Instruction…you do your own, I’m just going to observe. Essential Question: Think of your own. Now, create!