Guest post by John Hunter, author of the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (since 2004).
This is the fifth post in our Deming on Management series. This series provides resources for those interested in learning more about particular topics related to W. Edwards Deming’s ideas. View our previous Deming on Management posts: appreciation for a system, the PDSA cycle, psychology and the red bead experiment.
Dr. Deming was an educator for many years. I think this quote provides excellent insight into Deming’s ideas on education (from What Ought a School of Business Teach?, included in The Essential Deming).
I read the papers that my students turn in. A whole stack of them. That’s 435 students at Columbia University last semester and 150 at NYU. A lot of papers to read. But I read them. Not to grade them. No, I read them to see how I am doing. Where am I failing? What don’t they understand? Why do they give wrong answers? Why do they have some point of view that I don’t think is right? Where am I failing?
As you explore the links here you will quickly find one name popping up over and over: David Langford. David worked with Dr. Deming and has worked to apply Dr. Deming’s ideas in education around the world for decades. David also serves on our advisory council. David’s initial efforts took place at Mount Edgecumbe High School, in Sitka, Alaska (see Deming’s Ideas Applied in High School Education).
Blog Posts
- A Powerful Tool: The Capacity Matrix
- Support Learning with an Understanding of Psychology and Systems Thinking
- Peter Senge on the Creation of a Post-Industrial Theory and Practice of Education
- How to Improve the Education System
Videos
- A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers – excerpts from The Deming Library Volume XXI with Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Russell Ackoff, and David Langford
- Change has to Start from the Top – “You are the top of your system. Change your thinking, change your process – you change your system.” – David Langford
- Inquiring Minds: Improving Elementary Science by Linda Lippe
- The Schools Our Children Deserve by Alfie Kohn
- Silos to Systems: Presentation by Lisa Snyder
- David Langford Presentation on Motivation and System Improvement
- Student Led Change
- Dr. Deming’s Influence on One Elementary School Principal
- W. Edwards Deming and the Leander Way
- Finding Joy In Learning: Applying Deming’s Theory to Schools
- Change the Situation – Get a Different Result
- When Deming Goes to School
- Fixing Education: A Model That Works, by Bette Moen
- The Neuroscience of Deming by JW Wilson
Podcasts
- Monta Akin on The 20 Year Deming Journey at the Leander Independent School District
- Deming in Education: Education as a System
- David Langford – “Stop Doing the Wrong Thing Righter” to Start Changing the Education System
- Doug Stilwell shares lessons learned on his transition from a public school administrator to a professor of education at Drake University
- Alfie Kohn on Systems Thinking, Human Behavior and Education
- Applying Dr. Deming’s Ideas at the Lakeville Public School System
- Bret Champion – Students Are More Than Test Scores
- Improving Student Achievement at the Urbandale Community School District
- Deming Podcast with Dr. Bret Champion, Superintendent of the Leander Independent School District
Books
- The Essential Deming
- Punished by Rewards, No Contest: the Case Against Competition by Alfie Kohn
- The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing
- Orchestrating Learning With Quality by David Langford and Barbara Cleary
Articles
- It’s Not About Behavior by Alfie Kohn
- The Case Against Grades by Alfie Kohn
- Rethinking Homework by Alfie Kohn
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