AChristian

The end of this book reveals all three steps involved in bringing your vision to life.  A group of workers from the sixth floor of Good Samaritan return to the sushi restaurant to find out what came next after you had discovered your IT (vision).  Living your vision and allowing yourself to be coached by others and being willing to coach others were the steps Ishy revealed to them.  After trying to get things going the group returns and wants Ishy to provide a list of things or suggestions of things that worked for them at the restaurant.  Ishy said that that was not possible because it was up to them to discover a plan that would accomplish the desired environment on the sixth floor.

One of the things I take from this book is that in the work place things will not gel unless everyone works toward the same goal or vision.  We are in the business of educating children and even though we have our own classrooms and sets of students, we still need to work together to take each and every child from kindergarten to sixth grade.  If anyone teacher fails to do his or her part on a daily basis, we fail the child.  Another point I have learned from this book is no matter how long we have been teaching, each and everyone of us can improve and become a better educator.  We need to be willing to try new programs and ways of doing our job.  We also need to take the time to help others and share what seems to work in certain situations.  I thingk we often fail to realize that just because it worked once doesn't mean it will work in every situation.  Now, I'm off to try and live my IT.

Pages 38-77 unfold the plan Rhonda has to get and hopefully keep the sixth floor on track.  After meeting with Ishy, making notes and contemplating about her experience at Ishy's sushi restaurant, Rhonda begins to converse with her co-workers.  She wants to find out how they feel about the job they do at the hospital and what responsibility they possess in the fullfilment of this obligation.  Rhonda's goal is to discover the role each one of the staff members plays in the overall goal of the sixth floor which is to provide quality care to patients within a warm and friendly environment.  Everything seems to be rocking along until a new vice-president of nursing is hired by the hospital that does not agree with what is going on and she immediately questions what Rhonda is doing.  Miss Scallpell ditches the visual reminders that Rhonda has in place and she has to take another approach.

This book brings up a very important point related to our school.  What is the vision we have for the students at East Central and what role do the individual faculty members play in that vision.  For me, the role is clear cut.  I am to teach the gifted resource students to the best of my ability and make sure they are engaged in activities to stimulate their minds outside the regular classroom.  I am also their advocate and my hope is that I can acquire some materials that will be helpful to the regular classroom teachers that will take the burden off of them in the teaching and enriching of these higher level students.

Rhonda, a nurse at the Good Samaritan Hospital, has been promoted to manager of the sixth-floor nuro ward..  The previous manager, Madeleine, began a new program that made the sixth floor a better place to work and was so successful that other people in the hospital and even other hospitals along the East Coast wanted to know about her program.  Madeleine left to become a consultant and now Rhonda had her position.  Rhonda questioned her ability to do as good a job and was worried that things had already begun to unravel under her leadership.  She sought the advise of a dear friend, Margo.  Margo took her to a sushi bar in New York where a woman she knew was the only female sushi chef and a very good one.  The chef, Ishy, and her sushi chef husband had built a very successful business.  Ishy had also helped Margo with the same problem at the bank where she worked that Rhonda was facing at the hospital.

The beginning of this book brings to my mind the new beginning of each school year when a new set of students come into our classrooms eager, most of them, to learn what they need to be successful in that grade.  What we teach them should excite them and leave them begging for more.  The energy we put into our jobs as teachers should motivate our students to put as much energy into the work they do.  We should take the time to meet their every need so that each one can be successful and crave for more of what we have to offer them.