Family Involvement at Esperanza

The focus of our next Esperanza training the end of this month is family involvement.  We might want to start out with this cartoon???

Kaisan

I really like the concept of the word “kaisan” as it fits so beautifully with Dr. William Glasser’s Quality School Model. Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means "continuous improvement". It comes from the Japanese words 改 ("kai") which means "change" or "to correct" and 善 ("zen") which means "good".

Kaizen is a system that involves every employee - from upper management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is continuous. Kaizen is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made. Western philosophy may be summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

Kaizen involves setting standards and then continually improving those standards. To support the higher standards Kaizen also involves providing the training, materials and supervision that is needed for employees to achieve the higher standards and maintain their ability to meet those standards on an on-going basis.

Keep in mind that Kaizen is about action. Taking action to generate suggestions, and taking action to implement those suggestions immediately.

Productive and Meaningful Meetings

A talk at church today reminded me that how productive and meaningful a meeting (or a training!) is determined by what happens before and after the meeting. What happens in the meeting is important, but how prepared the attendees are will determine how much they get out of the meeting or training. In other words, have the attendees completed their individual work and assignments for the meeting? Also, what the attendees do after the meeting is important. Have new assignments been made with deadlines and who is responsible?

Volunteers! Volunteers! Volunteers!

Last night I watched a KSL segment on Project Tutor. As I watched the program and then read the transcript this morning I have been impressed once again with how important volunteers are for the success of our scholars.

As we look for volunteers the following are some sources:

• LDS Humanitarian Services


• AmeriCorps


• University students like the Adelante Program at Jackson Elementary in Salt Lake City School District


• Middle school students such as Latinos in Action and/or Coca Cola Valued Youth Program


• Senior Citizens


• Salt Lake Chamber Education Task Force


• Hispanic Chamber of Commerce


• Neighborhood people


• Parents

As we use volunteers it is important to train them, listen to their ideas, and show appreciation for them. It is also important to use pre and post testing when we have volunteers involved in projects such as tutoring so that they can see the fruits of their labors.