I’m the Fourth Michael Bock To Post A Video On You-Tube — I’m The Kettering School Board Candidate

I’m surprised to learn that in You-tube land I am the fourth Michael Bock to post a video. What are the odds? There is a Michael Bock who plays for Charlotte Christian, number nine, and makes a great tackle and a Michael Bock who does great tricks on his skate board and a Michael Bock, speaking in German, who is an official for Mercedes Benz. I’m theMichael Bock who is seeking election to the Kettering School Board in Kettering, Ohio. I wonder if somehow we could all be related?

The League of Women’s question made for an interesting exercise. I kept trying various versions of an answer and finally hit the 75 word maximum exactly. My first version I write about here, The League Asks This Question: “What Are The Biggest Challenges Facing The Kettering School System?”, and I quote it in the video below.

And this is the version that I sent in:

Public education needs a big leap in quality — including a big leap in cost effectiveness.  We need a ten year process of transformation that will result in a 21st century system of education.  Community consensus is needed.  Leadership is needed. The biggest challenge for the Kettering School Board is to lead the community in creating a shared vision of the future, and, in creating a well-thought out, long-term plan to bring that vision to reality.

I’d say that almost anyone running for any office could put that last sentence to good use and I’m offering it for free to anyone who is interested. David Esrati, for example, could say, “The biggest challenge for the Dayton City Commission is to lead the community in creating a shared vision of the future, and, in creating a well-thought out, long-term plan to bring that vision to reality.”

The challenge for our democracy, it seems to me, is the challenge of whether or not our democracy can and will produce leaders as I’ve defined leader above, as one who brings together a community, “in creating a shared vision of the future, and, in creating a well-thought out, long-term plan to bring that vision to reality.” Words, of course, are easy, it is easy to talk the talk. The tough part is to have an answer to Deming’s question: “By what method?”

Effective leaders find a way to engage the public in realistic and meaningful discussion. Effective leaders find a way to create community. Of course, engaging the public, creating community is easier said than done, but technology has given us powerful opportunities. So, I am entering You-tube land and I might enter Facebook land as well.

I’m now the proud owner of Mac OS X “Snow Leopard.” It seemed a little pricey — with tax I paid about $180 for the box set — but it seems to have a lot of neat stuff, including a whole new (for me) set of software called iWork. I want to use iWork to update my Lulu book and to produce some statistical graphs concerning Kettering Schools.

I tried to learn a little about the new version of iMovie by editing video of my presentation to the South of Dayton Democratic Club. This new software has an option that will analyze the shaking of a movie — from a handheld camera — and remove the shake from the video. I didn’t try that with this editing attempt. I hope to make a lot of short videos in this election season, so, hopefully, my video products eventually will improve.

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5 Responses to I’m the Fourth Michael Bock To Post A Video On You-Tube — I’m The Kettering School Board Candidate

  1. dollslikeus says:

    Good luck you are not running in Northmont my sons friend is wheere I live I agree with you on bring schools inot the this century you will need a plan .

  2. Vaughn Beams says:

    Hi Mike,
    You have the right idea, but you hit the nail on the head, when you spoke about change threatening entrenched interests. You will have to identify the cliques you are running against, and how you agree and disagree.
    You have carved out quite a broad area of change. Down the road I hope you can outline some concrete suggestions for change and improvement.
    Don’t go for consensus, but for leadership as you alluded to in your comments.
    I’m on your side, Mike.
    Vaughn

  3. Eric says:

    HB-1 retasks local school board members to be salesmen and fundraisers for Governor Strickland’s new mandates. When the Governor wants your opinioin on quality, democracy, 21st century skills, and the common good he will have has hand-picked Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction give it to you.

    Do you support the Governor, or do you support Republicans Lehner and Husted (and the Constitution of the State of Ohio)?

  4. Mike Bock says:

    Vaughn, thanks for your support. You write, “Down the road I hope you can outline some concrete suggestions for change and improvement.”

    In my speech I am trying to communicate that, if Kettering hopes to realize its potential as a community, we need to move our system of public education to a big improvement in overall quality and cost efficiency.

    Kettering, it seems to me, is a perfect place for public education to make a big leap in quality. As I say in the video, it is a matter of leadership. And the leadership that is needed is one that is dedicated to getting our democracy to work, a leadership dedicated to creating the space needed for community creativity, not the leadership that comes riding in with all the answers. So the real question is, how can community be activated?

    My concrete suggestion for change and improvement, right now, that I hope to build consensus for, is the proposal that Kettering plan for its future — particularly its future system of public education. As a community, we need to ask ourselves: What should Kettering public education look like in 2022 (when today’s kindergartners graduate)? Thinking about the future would mean thinking about foundational topics such as — what is the purpose of public education? what are we trying to accomplish? The concrete suggestion, I want to put together, is that the Kettering Board create a process of study concerning the future of Kettering schools, target 2022, that will result in proposals concerning a vision of the future of Kettering Schools and a plan for meeting that future.

    Eric, Thanks for your comments. I need to do some in-depth research concerning HB-1, so I can discuss it with you. If you have some good links, let me know. I was just reading this web-site. I think HB-1, its impact on local districts, would make a good topic for a video presentation, and I hope to make such a video soon. Right now, I don’t know the details of the policy position conderning HB-1 of Lehner and Husted, especially as compared to Strickland, send a link if you have one. When I understand the issues, I will give my own analysis.

  5. Stan Hirtle says:

    Kettering may be the ideal place for Mike Bock’s experiment. It does not have demographics stacked against it like Dayton or stacked in its favor like Oakwood. It has lots of class diversity, some poor, some very affluent. It has some good well run City services. As an “inner ring” suburb it has the beginnings of urban problems but not in overwhelming amounts. It has a good infrastructure in its school system, and some decent public servants. It is a conservative community but some of that is in a good sense. It is arguable that Kettering’s political separation from Dayton dooms the region by letting Dayton founder in poverty without Kettering’s resources and initiative, that would be applied to joint problems if it wre one community politically. But that does provide Bock an opportunity to do something meaningful that is relevant to communities everywhere.

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