ADDING VALUE – A Collaboration

Anyone who has watched Donald Trump’s television show, The Apprentice, knows that business and business people can be ruthlessly competitive. That is not always the case.

Life is too interesting to have only one career. In addition to teaching and writing, I owned (OK still do on a part time basis.) and operated a full time wedding and portrait photography studio. In that industry, while competition for clients is strong, the overriding attitude, even between direct competitors, is that of being colleagues. If a photographer experiences a natural disaster, or has a piece of vital equipment break, it is more likely than not that the person who comes to the rescue will be a direct competitor/colleague.

What does that have to do with the book Adding Value?

If you go to Amazon.com and google (or would it be amazoogle?) my name, you will see Mystery Disease & Mystery River. However you will also see three or four photography books, written not by me, but by Patrick Rice, a colleague in Northern Ohio. Why does that happen.? It is simple. Patrick understands that no one teacher (in his case - photography teacher) has all the answers. His photography books feature contributions from colleagues around the world.

Adding Value will be unique among books of its kind, because it will be a collaborative book. In addition to the chapters I write, it will feature strategies, techniques, worksheets, contracts, surveys, rubrics and other tools to related to each chapter. These will be tools that are contributed by REAL TEACHERS, who are already using them to add value to multiple groups of students at the same time.

You can also share your successes. Tell me about the things you are already doing – either in a reply to this post or in a separate e-mail. I’ll post great ideas and give you the credit. With your permission, I’ll include *your ideas, (* things you have created or significantly modified to meet student needs) with a credit to you, in Adding Value. Worksheets, rubrics, surveys, contracts, or anything else you use to differentiate instruction, may be sent as e-mail attachments to Mark@AddingValue.net.

If you have been published before, you know that being published adds credibility both to you and to your program where you teach. Sometimes being published can even be the tipping point in decisions involving your program or class at school.

If you have never been published, here is your chance to be a collaborative contributor to a significant book in the education w0rld.
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"Of grains of sand are mountains made."
Charles Willson Peale