Corporate Colours

Y045, Corporate Blue

What better ‘corporate’ colour to offer customers than your own ? Yes, Ford built one XA GT four door, one XA GT hardtop and one XA GT RPO83 hardtop, and painted them Ford Corporate Blue.

There is one other ‘odd’ colour which may or may not be a ‘corporate’ colour: Y266, Bechel Yellow. If anyone knows what Bechel Yellow is, or whether Bechel actually was an organisation, we would be keen to know. One XA GT hardtop built in January, 1973 in this colour.

Before "Lightning" Strikes

by Peter Hall

Answer yes or no to these questions.
1. Have you ever disciplined a student at school?
2. Have you ever disciplined the same student more than once?
3. Do you feel like you spend the majority of your discipline-time handling the same group of students… over and over again?
4. Do you have these students’ parents’ phone numbers on speed-dial on your cell phone?
5. Does the sight of these students in the hallways induce some sort of an involuntary physical response in you, perhaps gastrointestinal?
6. Have you had serious chats with your spouse, children, neighbours, neighbours’ children, and other faraway acquaintances and asked them to not name their unborn children the same names as these students?

If you answered "Yes” to any (or, more likely, all) of the questions above, congratulations! You’re officially a principal.

It’s an exhausting cycle: students cause mischief, we react to misbehaviours, we punish the students, we restore order and wait for the students to cause more and greater mischief. Around and around we go with the Frequent Fliers. The Repeat Offenders. The Office Boomerangs. The Detention Crew. These are the students that have difficulty, for one reason or another, playing by the rules, following directions, and keeping themselves out of trouble.

These are the Lightning Club.

Because lightning can strike at any time, virtually without warning.
But why wait for the lightning to strike? Why not act in a proactive manner? Benjamin Franklin didn’t invent the lightning rod in 1752 for fun, people -- he did it to help dissipate safely underground the electrical charge from lightning, thereby sparing tall buildings and other structures from certain damage. It was a proactive approach.

THE LIGHTNING CLUB IN ACTION

Identify the students that have the highest need for support. You might think this is the easiest step, since the children in question might be lined up outside your office door right now. Teachers and counsellors might have some good input, so a key to this step is to be collaborative. Not every student that throws a pencil in class, shoves a classmate in line, or fills the urinal with Tic Tacs warrants membership -- the model can become unwieldy if the list grows too long. Keep it to the highest-need, highest-risk, highest-frequency lightning bolts.

Create a plan of success for each individual student. In collaboration with the teachers, counsellor, parents, and student, sit down and isolate the top behaviour (or two) that are most negatively impacting the student’s (and/or classmates’) educational experience. Write the detailed expectations of behaviour, short-term and long-term goals, and include a series of small, sequential rewards… together. This success plan is the backbone of a productive collaborative relationship between all the stakeholders in the equation.

Make frequent, intentional positive contact with each individual student. According to the Search Institute, there are 40 developmental assets critical to the growth and success of healthy adolescents. Included in this list: support from three or more non-parent adults. These children, even more than any others, truly need to bond with key adults. So talk to them, ask how their weekends went, give them high-fives in the hallway, smile across the lunchroom at them, make a special point to ask about their schoolwork while you are conducting classroom walk-throughs, play tag on the playground with them… whatever contact you can make, make it. Then call their parents and tell them how much you enjoy seeing them smile at school. When we build those strong relationships, the positive behaviours will follow.

Follow through with the success plan faithfully, consistently, and devotedly. If you need the push, ask the school counsellor, another teacher, head custodian, or paraprofessional to log positive-contacts with you (in a friendly, child-focused competition). Set goals for yourself to make three positive-contacts with each Lightning Club member every day. Set aside time to debrief each week’s results with the teacher and the child (and the parent, if possible) -- this can be as simple as a short "How’d the week go?” form and a quick phone call home. Of course, it is also essential to provide the small rewards on schedule. Celebrate successes and reinvigorate the stakeholders as often as possible -- again, success begets success: positive behaviours will follow.

It’s easy for principals, teachers, counsellors, custodians, and crossing guards to dread the presence of the rabble-rousers. It’s simple to think, "What swear-words and disrespectful behaviour is she going to share today?” or "It’s just a matter of time before he flips out and gets into another fight.” It’s uncomfortable to face them, again and again, and it’s natural to want to avoid the strain and anguish of constantly disciplining them. No one likes being struck by lightning. But remember, Harry Wong fans, these are misbehaviours, not mischildren.

And is it really so difficult to install a conductive-metal strip with a low-resistance wire buried in the ground (with slight adaptations for behaviour modification purposes in the schoolhouse, of course)?

Comfort

A married woman has a lover. It’s no secret, her husband and all there friends know about it. One day, the woman suddenly dies. At the funeral, to the embarrassment of all, the boyfriend is there and is crying hysterically. Finally, the husband can't take anymore of it. He approaches the man, puts his arms around him and says "Please don't carry on like this. I'll marry again."

Corporate Colours

Y345, Readymix Orange

Readymix Concrete are a well known worldwide company whose corporate colour was, and is, orange.

There was one XA GT hardtop built painted Readymix Orange, and it still exists.

Love

“What we need is to love without getting tired." Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian

Sharp

A sharp nose points to curiosity. A flattened nose indicates too much curiosity.

Corporate Colours

Y269, R.A.A. Yellow

One four XA GT and one hardtop XA GT were painted Royal Automobile Association of South Australia yellow, presumably similar to the earlier RAA Yellow XY GT’s.

Dr. Ken Shore's Classroom Problem Solver

The Rude Student

The basic mission of school is to teach children the three R's, however a fourth R merits teachers' attention as well. That R stands for respect. Just as students need to master reading, writing, and arithmetic, they also need to learn the importance of acting respectfully toward their teachers and classmates. Children can be cruel. We only need witness the unkind things they do to one another -- name-calling, pulling a chair out from under a classmate, making a snide comment, excluding another child from a game, and so on -- to appreciate a child's capacity for cruelty. But if children have a capacity for cruelty, they also have a capacity for caring. An important part of helping students learn to act in a respectful manner is to stimulate their innate potential for kindness.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Establish a class signal to alert students to disrespectful behaviour. Develop a non-verbal signal -- such as a thumbs-down sign -- to let a student know he is saying or doing something rude or disrespectful. (You may need to say the student's name first to get his attention.) In that way, you can nip in the bud disrespectful behaviour with minimal disruption to the rest of the class. You might even start seeing your students give the signal to one another.
Catch students being kind. Acknowledge students when you see them acting in a kind or helpful manner. Describe the specific behaviour you observed. Do it publicly (unless you think it would embarrass him) in order to spur other children to engage in acts of kindness as well. As an example, you might say to a student: "Jesse, it was so nice of you to sit with Julio after he hurt himself on the playground. That was a very caring thing to do." Make a special effort to find something positive to say about students who are prone to unkind behaviour.
Teach the vocabulary of kindness. Make it easy for students to talk kindly to one another by giving them the words and phrases they need. On the bulletin board, post a list of "Terms of Respect," phrases that can be used to convey courtesy and caring. The list might include such phrases as "please;" "thank you;" "excuse me;" "I like the way you ...;" "Do you want to play with us?;" "You did a great job;" and so on. Encourage students to suggest additional phrases.
Role-play social situations with students. Pose some common school scenarios (for example, a student calling a classmate a name or cutting in front of him in line). Ask students how they might handle the situation in a respectful manner. In this way, students can hear what their classmates might say and do, and also have a chance to try out their own responses.
Have a courtesy display on the bulletin board. When you observe an act of kindness performed by one of your students, describe the act on a 3 x 5 card or a heart-shaped piece of paper, write the student's name on it, and tack it to a bulletin board display. Encourage students to nominate classmates for inclusion on the display, or have students create cards for their classmates and submit them to you. That might lead to a chain reaction of compliments, one that has a contagious effect on your students.

Time

"Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time,' is like saying, 'I don't want to.'" -- Lao-Tzu

Sign

A preacher was standing at the pulpit giving his Sunday sermon when a note was passed to him. The only word written on the sheet was IDIOT. Looking up at the congregation, the preacher smiled and said: I have heard of men who write letters and forget to sign their names but this is the first time I will see a man sign his name and forget to write the letters.

Corporate Colours

Y157, Mac Robertsons Old Gold

Mac Robertson, or to give him his full name and title Sir MacPherson Robertson, was a renowned Australian entrepreneur of Scottish-Irish descent, who made his fortune in the early part of the twentieth century through a confectionary empire. One is his most celebrated products was MacRobertson’s Old Gold chocolates which came in distinctively colured tins and boxes..

Four strategies for power decision making

by Caterina Rando

Regardless of your profession, you make a multitude of decisions every day. From whether to hold the meeting in the morning or afternoon, to whether to wear the black suit or the blue one, to whether to hire one job candidate over another, the number of daily decisions is almost endless. No wonder so many people feel overwhelmed with decisions. Even the most confident decision maker occasionally suffers from a brief bout of decidophobia. That’s when procrastination sets in.
When it’s time to make those tough calls regarding your career, your business and your future, indecision as you thoughtfully review your options is normal. Unfortunately, some business people go beyond thoughtful contemplation and let their fears and insecurity take over, causing them to put off making any kind of decision at all. What they fail to realize, though, is that not making a decision or not taking action actually are passive decisions that typically have negative consequences.

Indecision is a silent enemy that steals many opportunities. You cannot decide what to say to an employee or co-worker who has lost a relative, so you say nothing, loosing the opportunity to provide support. You put off deciding if you can afford to go to a conference, so you leave the information on your desk; the next time you read the flyer, you learn that the event has already passed. Your lack of decision-making caused you to miss an opportunity to meet with your colleagues and learn about your industry.

Proactive decision-making is vital to your career, because the sooner you make every decision, the more productive you’ll be. You’ll rid yourself of the distracting inner question of “what should I do?” and will be able to more fully concentrate on the tasks at hand.

The most adept decision makers use several different decision-making strategies on a daily basis. Master these four decision-making techniques today so you can make the best decisions for your company and yourself.

Light-speed decision making

Just as the name implies, light-speed decision making means making quick decisions on the spot. This technique works best for smaller decisions, such as what time to conduct a meeting, rather than for major decisions like whether or not to lay off an entire department.

The premise behind this strategy is that the quicker you make a decision on the spot, the more organized you’ll be. According to Deborah Silverberg, a professional organizer, the clutter that sits on our desks is the result of indecision. People pick up the same memo or read the same email over and over, never deciding what to do with it, which ultimately causes them to have stacks of paper on their desk and an overflowing in-bin.

As you begin to make non-crucial decisions quickly, realize that practice makes perfect. To start, make five decisions quickly every day as an exercise. As the clutter on your desk dissipates and you begin to have more time each day, you can tackle more important decisions with this technique.

This or that

Sometimes people don’t make decisions because they have so much to do and can’t prioritize their tasks. So instead of making a decision to do a particular task, they procrastinate by taking a coffee break, organizing their desk, or working on another project that is not as important. During these instances, the this-or-that strategy is a great tool to employ to help you decide what to do next.

Step one: Write down everything you want to complete or make a decision about today.
Step two: Ask yourself what you want to do first. Whatever item you must absolutely complete today should be your top priority. List all the other items underneath.
Step three: Look at the first item on your list and ask if “this” (item one) is more urgent than “that” (item two). If so, it stays where it is. If not, it changes places with the second item. Continue this process with the second and third items, then the third and fourth items, and so on to the end of your list.
For example if you had ten calls to make, a desk to clean, a report to write, meetings to schedule and a walk to take, you would put the most pressing item first. In this example, that would be the report to write because it has to be finished by 5 p.m. today. As you ask whether the next item (this) is more important than the preceding item (that), you determine the second task to be scheduling the meetings. Next is the walk because it invigorates you; then next come the calls because they keep getting put off; and finally the desk gets clean. If you don’t make the calls or clean your desk until the next day, that is OK because the consequences of each are few and you can accept them.

Heavy on the intuition

In other situations, the best decision-making tool is to take a deep breath, close your eyes and ask yourself what feels like the best decision. This is called the trust-your-gut method of decision-making.

For example, if you are packing for a business trip, you may ask yourself, “Should I bring my business suit or casual attire?” When this happens, do not consider every possible scenario. Instead, take a deep breath, ask yourself what feels true, and then pack the suit in your suitcase or not and forget about it.
Rather than waste time by running every possible outcome in your mind, you make the decision, get the task done quickly and do what feels good for that particular situation.

Cost vs. gain + values x possibilities

For your most important decisions, the cost vs. gain method is invaluable. It is similar to listing pros and cons in that it allows you to logically see the best decision for your situation.

Step one: On a piece of paper write down the situation that calls for a decision.
Step two: Draw four columns on the remainder of the page. Title the first column “cost,” the second column “gain,” the third column “values,” and the final column “possibilities.”
Step three: In the cost column, write down the price you pay for deciding a particular way. Consider all costs, including financial costs, time costs, relationship costs and emotional costs.
Step four: In the gain column, write down everything you will gain from this choice, considering financial, emotional, physical, time, relationship and any other gains.
Step five: In the values column, write down which of your values this decision honors and note any values that will be in conflict with the decision.
Step six: In the possibilities column, write down what you could do to minimize your costs, increase your gains and resolve any conflict with your values. The possibilities column helps you come up with creative ways to help you make your decision easier.

So, for example, as you decide whether to visit a client in another state, you would weigh the costs of the airfare, meals, etc, against what you would gain (an improved relationship). Then you would determine if this decision supports or goes against your values. If you value building client relationships, then the decision to go appears wise. As you investigate your possibilities, you learn that you can use frequent flyer miles to offset the costs. Now the costs are minimized, the gains are worthwhile, and the decision to go is in alignment with your values. Any other decision would be foolish.

When you make quick and confident decisions you eliminate second-guessing yourself and you ultimately get more done. Use the decision-making strategy that is best for you and the situation so you can resolve open issues and stick with your decisions once and for all. The more you use these methods, the better you’ll make sound decisions that increase your productivity and enhance your career.

Economist

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the thing he predicted yesterday did not happen today.

Corporate Colours

Y154, Betta Primrose.

Betta Electrical is a chain of electrical goods stores. We guess, sometime in their past, that their corporate colour was a primrose shade. Two XA GT hardtops painted this colour were sold. Betta continue an association with Ford by sponsoring a V8 Supercar team, running a BA Falcon.

A Whack On The Side Of The Head

Roger von Oech says in the book, ‘A Whack On The Side Of The Head',

"By the time the average person finishes High School he or she will have taken over 2600 tests, quizzes and exams. The right ‘answer' approach becomes deeply ingrained in our thinking. This may be fine for some mathematical problems, where there is in fact only one answer. The difficulty is that most of life isn't that way. Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers - all depending on what you are looking for. But if you think there is only one answer, then you'll stop looking as soon as you find one."

The need to teach flexibility in thinking is becoming increasingly important for the future and success. In fact Charles Darwin said "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Waiter!

A guest in a posh hotel comes down to breakfast and called over the head waiter and read from the menu “I’d like one under cooked egg so that it’s running, and one over cooked egg that it’s tough and hard to eat. I’d also like grilled bacon which is a bit on the cold side, burnt toast, butter straight from the freezer so that it’s impossible to spread, and a pot of very weak, lukewarm coffee.”

"that’s a complicated order sir," said the bewildered waiter. “It might be quite difficult.”

The guest replied sarcastically, “It can’t be that difficult because that’s exactly what you brought me yesterday!”

Corporate Colours

Y152, New South Wales Ambulance White

What can we say ? Another, slightly bizarre choice of colour for a car, especially as Ford offered two other white colours; Polar White, code ‘3’, and Ultra White, code ‘U’ or option code Y377 or Z801.

So why NSW Ambulance White ? Two built, an October, 1972 four door and a November, 1972 built hardtop. They must have made fast ambulances for someone.

Listening

"Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen." --Margaret J. Wheatley

What?

While getting a checkup, a man tells his doctor that he thinks his wife is losing her hearing. The doctor says, "You should do a simple test. Stand about 15 feet behind your wife and say 'honey?’ Move 3 feet closer and do it again. Keep moving 3 feet closer until she finally responds." Remember how close you were when she gives you an answer. That will help me know how bad her hearing loss is.

About a month later the same guy is at the doctor again and the doctor asks, "Well, did you do that experiment with your wife's hearing?” The man says "yes". "How close did you get before she answered?" "Well, by the time I got about 3 feet away she just turned around and said "For the FIFTH TIME... WHAT???"

Corporate Colours

Y120, Daimler Blue.

A bit of a puzzler this one. We know that Daimlers were badged Jaguars or limousines. Was there a specific colour called Daimler Blue ? We have the Dulux code for Daimler Blue, 1102, but no way of telling whether it was actually a Daimler colour ? One four door and one hardtop were painted in this unusual and unknown colour.

The Perils and Promises of Praise

by Carol S. Dweck

Educational Leadership - October 2007 | Volume 65 | Number 2

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behaviour. The right kind motivates students to learn.

We often hear these days that we've produced a generation of young people who can't get through the day without an award. They expect success because they're special, not because they've worked hard. Is this true? Have we inadvertently done something to hold back our students? I think educators commonly hold two beliefs that do just that. Many believe that (1) praising students' intelligence builds their confidence and motivation to learn, and (2) students' inherent intelligence is the major cause of their achievement in school. Our research has shown that the first belief is false and that the second can be harmful—even for the most competent students.
As a psychologist, I have studied student motivation for more than 35 years. My graduate students and I have looked at thousands of children, asking why some enjoy learning, even when it's hard, and why they are resilient in the face of obstacles. We have learned a great deal. Research shows us how to praise students in ways that yield motivation and resilience. In addition, specific interventions can reverse a student's slide into failure during the vulnerable period of adolescence.

Fixed or Malleable?

Praise is intricately connected to how students view their intelligence. Some students believe that their intellectual ability is a fixed trait. They have a certain amount of intelligence, and that's that. Students with this fixed mind-set become excessively concerned with how smart they are, seeking tasks that will prove their intelligence and avoiding ones that might not (Dweck, 1999, 2006). The desire to learn takes a backseat. Other students believe that their intellectual ability is something they can develop through effort and education. They don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or a Mozart, but they do understand that even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were. When students believe that they can develop their intelligence, they focus on doing just that. Not worrying about how smart they will appear, they take on challenges and stick to them (Dweck, 1999, 2006).

More and more research in psychology and neuroscience supports the growth mind-set. We are discovering that the brain has more plasticity over time than we ever imagined (Doidge, 2007); that fundamental aspects of intelligence can be enhanced through learning (Sternberg, 2005); and that dedication and persistence in the face of obstacles are key ingredients in outstanding achievement (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich, & Hoffman, 2006).

Alfred Binet (1909/1973), the inventor of the IQ test, had a strong growth mind-set. He believed that education could transform the basic capacity to learn. Far from intending to measure fixed intelligence, he meant his test to be a tool for identifying students who were not profiting from the public school curriculum so that other courses of study could be devised to foster their intellectual growth.

The Two Faces of Effort

The fixed and growth mind-sets create two different psychological worlds. In the fixed mind-set, students care first and foremost about how they'll be judged: smart or not smart. Repeatedly, students with this mind-set reject opportunities to learn if they might make mistakes (Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998). When they do make mistakes or reveal deficiencies, rather than correct them, they try to hide them (Nussbaum & Dweck, 2007). They are also afraid of effort because effort makes them feel dumb. They believe that if you have the ability, you shouldn't need effort (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007), that ability should bring success all by itself. This is one of the worst beliefs that students can hold. It can cause many bright students to stop working in school when the curriculum becomes challenging. Finally, students in the fixed mind-set don't recover well from setbacks. When they hit a setback in school, they decrease their efforts and consider cheating (Blackwell et al., 2007). The idea of fixed intelligence does not offer them viable ways to improve.

Let's get inside the head of a student with a fixed mind-set as he sits in his classroom, confronted with algebra for the first time. Up until then, he has breezed through math. Even when he barely paid attention in class and skimped on his homework, he always got As. But this is different. It's hard. The student feels anxious and thinks, “What if I'm not as good at math as I thought? What if other kids understand it and I don't?” At some level, he realizes that he has two choices: try hard, or turn off. His interest in math begins to wane, and his attention wanders. He tells himself, “Who cares about this stuff? It's for nerds. I could do it if I wanted to, but it's so boring. You don't see CEOs and sports stars solving for x and y.”

By contrast, in the growth mind-set, students care about learning. When they make a mistake or exhibit a deficiency, they correct it (Blackwell et al., 2007; Nussbaum & Dweck, 2007). For them, effort is a positive thing: It ignites their intelligence and causes it to grow. In the face of failure, these students escalate their efforts and look for new learning strategies. Let's look at another student—one who has a growth mind-set—having her first encounter with algebra. She finds it new, hard, and confusing, unlike anything else she has ever learned. But she's determined to understand it. She listens to everything the teacher says, asks the teacher questions after class, and takes her textbook home and reads the chapter over twice.

As she begins to get it, she feels exhilarated. A new world of math opens up for her.
It is not surprising, then, that when we have followed students over challenging school transitions or courses, we find that those with growth mind-sets outperform their classmates with fixed mind-sets—even when they entered with equal skills and knowledge. A growth mind-set fosters the growth of ability over time (Blackwell et al., 2007; Mangels, Butterfield, Lamb, Good, & Dweck, 2006; see also Grant & Dweck, 2003).

The Effects of Praise

Many educators have hoped to maximize students' confidence in their abilities, their enjoyment of learning, and their ability to thrive in school by praising their intelligence. We've studied the effects of this kind of praise in children as young as 4 years old and as old as adolescence, in students in inner-city and rural settings, and in students of different ethnicities—and we've consistently found the same thing (Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck, 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998): Praising students' intelligence gives them a short burst of pride, followed by a long string of negative consequences. We found that praise for intelligence tended to put students in a fixed mind-set (intelligence is fixed, and you have it), whereas praise for effort tended to put them in a growth mind-set (you're developing these skills because you're working hard).

We offered students a chance to work on either a challenging task that they could learn from or an easy one that ensured error-free performance. Most of those praised for intelligence wanted the easy task, whereas most of those praised for effort wanted the challenging task and the opportunity to learn. Next, the students worked on some challenging problems. As a group, students who had been praised for their intelligence lost their confidence in their ability and their enjoyment of the task as soon as they began to struggle with the problem. If success meant they were smart, then struggling meant they were not. The whole point of intelligence praise is to boost confidence and motivation, but both were gone in a flash. Only the effort-praised kids remained, on the whole, confident and eager. When the problems were made somewhat easier again, students praised for intelligence did poorly, having lost their confidence and motivation. As a group, they did worse than they had done initially on these same types of problems. The students praised for effort showed excellent performance and continued to improve.

Finally, when asked to report their scores (anonymously), almost 40 percent of the intelligence-praised students lied. Apparently, their egos were so wrapped up in their performance that they couldn't admit mistakes. Only about 10 percent of the effort-praised students saw fit to falsify their results. Praising students for their intelligence, then, hands them not motivation and resilience but a fixed mind-set with all its vulnerability. In contrast, effort or “process” praise (praise for engagement, perseverance, strategies, improvement, and the like) fosters hardy motivation. It tells students what they've done to be successful and what they need to do to be successful again in the future. Process praise sounds like this:
· You really studied for your English test, and your improvement shows it. You read the material over several times, outlined it, and tested yourself on it. That really worked!
· I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it.
· It was a long, hard assignment, but you stuck to it and got it done. You stayed at your desk, kept up your concentration, and kept working. That's great!
· I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work—doing the research, designing the machine, buying the parts, and building it. You're going to learn a lot of great things.

What about a student who gets an A without trying? I would say, “All right, that was too easy for you. Let's do something more challenging that you can learn from.” We don't want to make something done quickly and easily the basis for our admiration. What about a student who works hard and doesn't do well? I would say, “I liked the effort you put in. Let's work together some more and figure out what you don't understand.” Process praise keeps students focused, not on something called ability that they may or may not have and that magically creates success or failure, but on processes they can all engage in to learn.

Motivated to Learn

Finding that a growth mind-set creates motivation and resilience—and leads to higher achievement—we sought to develop an intervention that would teach this mind-set to students. We decided to aim our intervention at students who were making the transition to 7th grade because this is a time of great vulnerability. School often gets more difficult in 7th grade, grading becomes more stringent, and the environment becomes more impersonal. Many students take stock of themselves and their intellectual abilities at this time and decide whether they want to be involved with school. Not surprisingly, it is often a time of disengagement and plunging achievement.

We performed our intervention in a New York City junior high school in which many students were struggling with the transition and were showing plummeting grades. If students learned a growth mind-set, we reasoned, they might be able to meet this challenge with increased, rather than decreased, effort. We therefore developed an eight-session workshop in which both the control group and the growth-mind-set group learned study skills, time management techniques, and memory strategies (Blackwell et al., 2007). However, in the growth-mind-set intervention, students also learned about their brains and what they could do to make their intelligence grow.

They learned that the brain is like a muscle—the more they exercise it, the stronger it becomes. They learned that every time they try hard and learn something new, their brain forms new connections that, over time, make them smarter. They learned that intellectual development is not the natural unfolding of intelligence, but rather the formation of new connections brought about through effort and learning. Students were riveted by this information. The idea that their intellectual growth was largely in their hands fascinated them. In fact, even the most disruptive students suddenly sat still and took notice, with the most unruly boy of the lot looking up at us and saying, “You mean I don't have to be dumb?”

Indeed, the growth-mind-set message appeared to unleash students' motivation. Although both groups had experienced a steep decline in their math grades during their first months of junior high, those receiving the growth-mind-set intervention showed a significant rebound. Their math grades improved. Those in the control group, despite their excellent study skills intervention, continued their decline. What's more, the teachers—who were unaware that the intervention workshops differed—singled out three times as many students in the growth-mindset intervention as showing marked changes in motivation. These students had a heightened desire to work hard and learn. One striking example was the boy who thought he was dumb. Before this experience, he had never put in any extra effort and often didn't turn his homework in on time. As a result of the training, he worked for hours one evening to finish an assignment early so that his teacher could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+ on the assignment (he had been getting Cs and lower previously).

Other researchers have obtained similar findings with a growth-mind-set intervention. Working with junior high school students, Good, Aronson, and Inzlicht (2003) found an increase in math and English achievement test scores; working with college students, Aronson, Fried, and Good (2002) found an increase in students' valuing of academics, their enjoyment of schoolwork, and their grade point averages. To facilitate delivery of the growth-mind-set workshop to students, we developed an interactive computer-based version of the intervention called Brainology. Students work through six modules, learning about the brain, visiting virtual brain labs, doing virtual brain experiments, seeing how the brain changes with learning, and learning how they can make their brains work better and grow smarter. Adolescents often see school as a place where they perform for teachers who then judge them. The growth mind-set changes that perspective and makes school a place where students vigorously engage in learning for their own benefit.

Going Forward

Our research shows that educators cannot hand students confidence on a silver platter by praising their intelligence. Instead, we can help them gain the tools they need to maintain their confidence in learning by keeping them focused on the process of achievement.

Maybe we have produced a generation of students who are more dependent, fragile, and entitled than previous generations. If so, it's time for us to adopt a growth mind-set and learn from our mistakes. It's time to deliver interventions that will truly boost students' motivation, resilience, and learning.

Mistaken Identity

Peter was telling a friend that he had just lost his job.
“Why did the foreman fire you?” the friend asked in surprise.
“Oh,” Peter said, “you know how foreman are. They stand around with their hands in their pockets watching everybody else work.”
“We all know that,” replied his friend. “But why did he let you go?”
“Jealousy,” answered Pete. “All the other workers thought I was the foreman.”

Corporate Colours

Y117, Brambles Red.

Interestingly, after abandoning Brambles Red as its corporate racing colour for the XY GT-HO’s, Ford returned to the colour for what was to be its killer race car, the logically named and numbered XA GT-HO Phase4. In May, 1972, three four door XA GT’s were walked down the production line and immediately sent to FSV for modification to Phase4 specs, and conversion to two factory racing cars, and one spare.



And then the ‘Supercar’ scandal broke, and the Phase4 was cancelled with only these three Brambles Red racing conversions and one, bonafide regular production car - painted Calypso Green - escaping. Two of the Brambles Red cars still exist, as does the Calypso Green car, but the third Brambles Red car was rallied, and subsequently written off.

However, Ford built four more Brambles Red four doors, two Brambles Red hardtop GT’s and one Brambles Red RPO83 hardtop; eleven cars in total.

'True' Friendship

Enough of that Sissy Rubbish!
  
1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against the sorry bastard who made you sad.
2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.
4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be, until you quit whining.
6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.
7. When you are sick -- I will tell you to stay the hell away from me
   until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at you for being clumsy.

Problem Solving

A brilliant young boy was applying for a job with the railways. The interviewer asked him: "Do you know how to use the equipment?"
"Yes", the boy replied.
"Then what would you do if you realized that 2 trains, one from this station and one from the next were going to crash because they were on the same track?"
The young applicant thought and replied "I'd press the button to change the points without hesitation."
"What if the button was frozen and wouldn't work?"
"I'd run outside and pull the lever to change the points manually"
"And if the lever was broken?"
"I'd get on the phone to the next station and tell them to change the points," he replied.
"And if the phone was broken and needed an electrician to fix it?"
The boy thought about that one. "I'd run into town and get my uncle"
"Is your uncle an electrician?"
"No, but he's never seen a train crash before!"

Corporate Colours

Y113, Rothmans Blue.

Rothmans are the tobacco company, famous in earlier times for their ‘King Size’ cigarettes with their distinctive blue advertising colour and packaging.



Two XA GT four doors were painted Rothmans Blue, and one RPO83 hardtop.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TEACHER?

1. You can hear 25 voices behind you and know exactly which one belongs to the child out of line.
2. You get a secret thrill out of laminating something.
3. You walk into a store and hear the words "It's Ms/Mr. _________" and know you have been spotted.
4. You have 25 people that accidentally call you Mum/Dad at one time or another.
5. You can eat a multi-course meal in under twenty-five minutes.
6. You've trained yourself to go to the bathroom at two distinct times of the day: lunch and morning tea.
7. You start saving other people's trash, because most likely, you can use that toilet paper tube or plastic butter tub for something in the classroom.
8. You believe the staffroom should be equipped with a margarita machine.
9. You want to slap the next person who says "Must be nice to work 9 to 3 and have summers off."
10. You believe chocolate is a food group.
11. You can tell if it's a full moon without ever looking outside.
12. You believe that unspeakable evils will be fall you if anyone says "Boy, the kids sure are mellow today."
13. You feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behaviour when you are out in public.
14. You think caffeine should be available in intravenous form.
15. You spend more money on school stuff than you do on your own children or
yourself.
16. You can't pass the school supply aisle without getting at least five items!
17. You ask your friends if the left hand turn he just made was a "good choice or a bad choice."
18. You find true beauty in a can full of perfectly sharpened pencils
19. You are secretly addicted to hand sanitizer.
20. You understand instantaneously why a child behaves a certain way after red cordial.

Salary Package

Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources person asked a young engineer fresh out of MIT, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"
The engineer said, "In the neighborhood of $125,000 a year, depending on the benefits package."
The interviewer said, "Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Corvette?"
The engineer sat up straight and said, "Wow! Are you kidding?"
And the interviewer replied, "Yeah, but you started it."

Corporate Colours

Y107, Ansett Blue.

Ansett was an Australian airline founded by Reg Ansett in 1935. It went bankrupt in 2001. Originally the company was known as Ansett Airways, then Ansett Airlines of Australia, and finally Ansett Australia. In its final days, the aircraft tails were painted a striking blue shade, but in its heyday the aircraft carried an orange colour scheme.

Not much help if we are looking for a colour called Ansett Blue. However, here is an older picture of an Ansett aircraft, and yes, the paint scheme features blue.

So, that could be the Ansett Blue, perhaps ? Now, all we have to do is compare it with the one, and only, XA GT that was painted Ansett Blue. This car still exists, and it is an RO83 car too. Unfortunately, the car has, at some point, been repainted Cosmic Blue. However, parts of the car are stilll visible in the original paint and the owner reports that it is like the XW colour Starlight Blue, but with some more green in it.

Here is a Starlight Blue XW GT for comparison with the aircraft above.
However, the tale of the Ansett Blue XA GT is even more interesting because the car was ordered to be painted Aluminium, just like 12 other XA GT’s.
Except, somewhere during the ordering process, Y017 Aluminium became Y107, Ansett Blue. We bet the dealership, and the new owner, got a bit of a shock over that one.

Perhaps as a final hint of what Ansett Blue looks like, there was also a trucking company called Ansett Freight Express, and here is one of their units. Could this be Y107, Ansett Blue ?

Passion

"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark" - Henri Frederic Amiel.

How many?

Q: How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to assure the public that everything possible is being done while the other screws it into a water faucet.

Corporate colours

Y099, Shell Yellow

There was one Shell Yellow XA hardtop built, in December, 1972. It is not the most famous Shell Yellow XA though, as that was originally a Yellow Glow car that John Goss painted Shell Yellow for his sponsors and which he raced in the 1973 Hardie Ferodo 1000.