What I’ve Learned From Being an English Teacher

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Seth Czarnecki June 23, 2014

Empowering students to use writing as a way to know themselves is what motivates and inspires this English teacher.

In this course, participants learn core principles, concepts, and methods of continuous improvement and explore the history of continuous improvement efforts. In a series of lectures, Master Black Belt in Six Sigma Shane Wentz, Ph.D., enables learners to enhance, optimize, and stabilize business processes and to augment quality control through varied methodologies. Participants gain the skills and knowledge to reimagine internal processes, engage in advanced problem-solving, and empower employees. The course covers high-level foundational principles of Lean, Six Sigma, and DMAIC processes before diving deep into Lean Six Sigma methods. Learners will analyze the tools of process mapping, Kaizen (a continuous improvement method/tool deemed a prerequisite for Lean transformation success), Lean (a continuous improvement philosophy that emphasizes streamlined workflows and reducing waste), and the process improvement methodology driving DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.

Entrepreneurs fostering new ventures outside of well-developed entrepreneurial ecosystems like Silicon Valley face significant challenges. These markets are unlike Silicon Valley, and they will likely remain so. That doesn't mean they can't nurture and sustain new businesses. In transitioning markets that lack abundant private sector financing, creative approaches from government officials, donors, and business leaders can fill the void to support entrepreneurial activity. Northeast Ohio (where Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University are located) has become a laboratory for such innovative solutions. During our time together in this course, we will explore some of these creative approaches to promoting regional entrepreneurship. Northeast Ohio has seen a massive infusion of government and donor resources for over ten years. In that time, Northeast Ohio has promoted regional development (including job creation and follow-on funding) through alternative methods of financing startups. It has not been easy. The region has made progress, but it remains to be seen whether it has struck upon an enduring formula. A dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem takes many years, even decades, to develop. Government policymakers and donors typically seek quicker returns on their support programs, which makes long-term support for entrepreneurship challenging. This course includes case studies and first-person testimonials from entrepreneurs who have launched products and services ranging from medical devices to LED lights to whiskey. You will learn how these entrepreneurs discovered and procured resources from various programs and intermediary organizations. You will hear from business people still in the process of developing their companies as well as those whose ventures have flourished. Our focus will extend beyond Cleveland to selected markets around the world, including Greece, Vietnam, Tunisia, Argentina, Rwanda and China. You will learn about international incentives and other supports available to developing startups and small businesses across the globe. This course examines how different communities around the world approach implementing strategies and methods to support businesses. I will ask you to reflect on how to apply the principles we learn to growing entrepreneurship where you live. The social interactive features of the online platform will enable students from around the world to share ideas and learn from one another. Most MOOCs rebroadcast professors’ lectures; this course is different. Don’t expect to see me standing in front of the camera, talking and lecturing every module. Instead, the lectures will be relatively short in length. They have more of the feel of an engaging documentary than a static classroom setting. ## __What type of person takes the *Beyond Silicon Valley* course?__ - Active and aspiring businesspeople in communities looking to initiate new startup ecosystems or bolster existing ones - Current and prospective entrepreneurs who want to learn about funding sources, risk management, and the lifecycle of startups - Professionals who work in government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic institutions, and various private funds that fund startups - Anyone curious about how to create and grow startup ecosystems outside the major tech hubs - The principles Beyond Silicon Valley teaches have been drawn from and applied to startups worldwide, from small villages to megalopolises. You'll study success stories spanning the globe from Vietnam to Kosovo to Botswana. ## __What will you learn in *Beyond Silicon Valley*?__ - How and where startups can find funding to get their businesses off the ground - What role government can play in encouraging startups and a healthy startup ecosystem - How anchor institutions such as universities and healthcare systems participate in startup ecosystems - How nongovernmental organizations support startups - How to raise funds from venture capitalists, angel investors, and accelerators - How to navigate challenging periods in the startup lifecycle - The importance of mentoring in successful startups

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When I was in middle school, I loved writing poetry.

It started when a girl I liked invited me to one of her poetry readings. She had been an adolescent virtuoso of sorts, already published in a college textbook at the age of twelve. So I lied and said that I, too, wrote poetry in the hopes that our common interest would blossom into that angsty, hormone-driven love our adult selves now cringe at the thought of.

Though our romance fizzled within the year, my love for the poetic form began and persisted. I loved how I could go to a reading and be immersed in the rhythms and voice of a poem — half the time not fully understanding what the poet was saying. I loved how when I wrote, I wasn’t beholden to the grammar rules my teachers pushed upon me in my ELA classes. I loved how my poems sounded like me, how my voice resonated.

The writing I did in school, however, did not sound like me.

Unrelenting red ink and the substitution of my voice for one that sounded more clinical, more like my teacher, made me dislike writing. I knew I was literate. I knew I could write; however, the way I was being taught did not empower me to use my voice. Instead, I felt it was being muffled. I did as little as possible to get by and it wasn’t until I reached college that writing instructors helped me hone my voice to a point where even essays began to sound like me.

Now that I’m an English teacher myself, I’ve realized that, like my juvenile self, students want to write.

In the past, students have handed me chapters from books they were working on in their spare time. Other students willingly wrote articles for the school paper with the hope of it being published. This year a student, who had trouble completing and turning in an essay during our Hemingway unit, decided to write a three page long ode to his favorite word, “senescence," which Science Daily tells me is “the combination of processes of deterioration which follow the period of development of an organism." This assignment had a fifteen-line requirement. For a project on writing in a difficult genre, three students are writing novels, six are writing satirical essays, and even more are writing collections of poetry.

Like a sneeze, students feel the need to write and want to let it out.

The key is to empower them to do so in a way that their voices are encouraged, not stripped away. When educators allow students to experiment and take chances, the results can be inspiring. They will embrace the challenge because it comes from and belongs to them.