The Business of #Blueberries

I had the pleasure of seeing Jamie Vollmer speak at a back to school rally in our district a number of years ago when I was a classroom teacher.  Back then, I didn't quite understand the relevance of his speech, yet I cheered as he told his story.  Now, I understand it all too well and I hope he is getting a lot of speaking engagements.  The permission to reprint this story has been granted. I did not write it.  Please read it carefully.  And then read about the precious #blueberries that Ms. Katie marched for.  

Follow @jamievol on Twitter as well.

The Blueberry Story: The teacher gives the businessman a lesson


“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business
very long!”
I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by
the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice.
Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a
knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an
executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle1980s when People
Magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic
selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the
needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were a major part of the
problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by
tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We
knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced - equal parts ignorance and arrogance.
As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant – she was,
in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to
unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice
cream.”

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”

“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when
you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries
arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t
going to lie.

“I send them back.”

She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our
blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened,
confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid
arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that,
Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries
jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!”

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a
business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are
dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are
constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that
would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we
teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But
educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding,
trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most
important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of
the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than
changing our schools, it means changing America.

Jamie Robert Vollmer © 2011
Jamie Vollmer is a former business executive and attorney who now works to increase public support for
America’s public schools.  His new book, Schools Cannot Do It Alone is available at www.jamievollmer.com