Books about Unprecedented from Amazon.com

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According to author Mike Schmoker, there is a yawning gap between the most well-known essential practices and the reality of most classrooms This gap persists despite the hard, often heroic work done by many teachers and administrators. Schmoker believes that teachers and administrators may know what the best practices are, but they aren’t using them or reinforcing them consistently. He asserts that our schools are protected by a buffer—a protective barrier that prevents scrutiny of instruction by outsiders. The buffer exists within the school as well. Teachers often know only what is going on in their classrooms—and they may be completely in the dark about what other teachers in the school are doing. Even principals, says Schmoker, don’t have a clear view of the daily practices of teaching and learning in their schools.

Schmoker suggests that we need to get beyond this buffer to confront the truth about what is happening in classrooms, and to allow teachers to learn from each other and to be supervised properly. He outlines a plan that focuses on the importance of consistent curriculum, authentic literacy education, and professional learning communities for teachers.

What will students get out of this new approach? Learning for life. Schmoker argues passionately that students become learners for life when they have more opportunities to engage in strategic reading, writing with explicit guidance, and argument and discussion.

Through strong teamwork, true leadership, and authentic learning, schools and their students can reach new heights. Results Now is a rally cry for educators to focus on what counts. If they do, Schmoker promises, the entire school community can count on unprecedented achievements..
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Asking the old questions, according to authors Dick Whitney and Melissa Giovagnoli, means getting the same old answers And that can be deadly for any group or company that wants to move ahead. Instead, they offer 75 outrageous, thought-provoking questions that clean out the corporate cobwebs and get workers' minds working in new and productive directions. Drawing from their own experiences as top international business consultants, Whitney and Giovagnoli provide field-tested "cage-rattlers" that can help improve leadership, resolve on-the-job conflicts, stimulate innovation, facilitate better communication, and much more. Additionally, the guide benefits individuals as much as it does teams, small groups, small businesses, and larger corporations..
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This is a book for women who are passionate about exploring their role in shaping the "unnamed future." Using the image of the midwife, spiritual directors Mary Ruth Broz and Barbara Flynn have developed a series of reflections and rituals that can be used by individuals or groups of women coming together to deepen their own spirituality and uncover new life in age-old spiritual truths. Black-and-white photographs by noted photographer Jean Clough help capture the mystery and spirit of that quest. Each chapter includes suggestions for creating an environment helpful to contemplation, a reflection on the particular theme, questions to connect the topic with lived experience, and closing readings or songs to conclude a session and bring readers back into daily life. At the end of each chapter are ways of using the material in a group setting..
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As head of the 9/11 victim compensation fund, Kenneth Feinberg was asked to do the impossible: calculate the dollar value of over 5,000 people killed and injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks Just days after September 11th 2001, Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to administer the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, a unique, unprecedented fund established by the US Congress to compensate families who lost a loved one on 9/11 and survivors who were physically injured in the attacks. Those who participated in the fund were required to waive their right to sue the airlines involved in the attacks, as well as other potentially responsible entities. When the programme was launched, many families criticized it as a brazen, tight-fisted attempt to protect the airlines from lawsuits. The Fund was also attacked as attempting to put insulting dollar values on the lives of lost loved ones. The families were in pain. And they were angry. Over the course of the next three years, Feinberg spent almost all of his time meeting the families, convincing them of the generosity and compassion of the programme and calculating appropriate awards for each and every claim. The Fund proved to be a dramatic success with over 97 per cent of eligible families participating. It also provided important lessons for Feinberg who became the filter, the arbitrator and the target of family suffering. Feinberg learned about the enduring power of family grief, love, fear, faith, frustration and courage. Most importantly, he learned that no cheque, no matter how large could make the families and victims of 9/11 whole again..
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The purpose of this book is to address one of the most rapidly growing and important areas in the field of organization development. Despite its importance, relatively little is known about international and global organization development. This book is designed to summarize and apply the existing knowledge in international and global organization development in such a fashion as to provide insight, knowledge, and application in a way that is most helpful to the organization development professional who is interested in, or working in, the field. The book incorporates models of cultural differences, which are identified and expanded in terms of the implications for the practice of organization development. (1) It explores cultural values in terms of differences in resistance to change, the nature of leadership roles, organizational structure and the application of such organization development techniques as team building, survey feedback, job redesign, and large group methods. (2) It explore successes in both developed and developing countries. (3) It provides a list of competencies both for basic knowledge and skills and their extension to international work. It explores the match between organization development interventions and national cultural values. (4) It explores the role of economic development and legal and political structures for global organization development practitioners. It deals with the issue of culture specific versus universal organization development techniques. (5) It incorporates stories from pioneers in the field as well as more recent members of the organization development community. (6) It uses illustrations from award-winning international projects. (7) It draws on a substantial amount of work undertaken by the authors including over one hundred interviews with leading organization development professionals, surveys of organization development professionals, articles and books on international/global organization development and the authors' own international research including an awardwinning international case..
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Social activism and dissent have become global phenomena for our times. Ordinary people across the world are fighting back. This newly potent political force has defeated governments in India and Spain, and has brought down the EU draft constitution. Disaffected by the triumph of markets, public goods, public interest and public spaces are regaining political ground.

Daniel Drache argues that, feeding off distrust and suspicion of governments, and assisted by the new cultural flows of people, ideas and information, this is a political phenomenon without historical precedent. No-one owns the new public, elites remain baffled by its power and impact. No-one can contain its innovative, inclusive and rapidly evolving organizational style. No-one can determine when the current cycle of dissent will peak.

This lively and engaging book is a must-read for anyone interested in the role of protesters and publics in contemporary politics..
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In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, the man who directed the largest and most groundbreaking forensic DNA investigation in U.S. history, tells with poignant clarity and refreshing honesty the story behind the relentless effort to identify the 2,749 victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

No part of the investigation into the 9/11 attacks has taken as long or been less discussed than the daunting task of identifying the victims -- and the hijackers -- from the remains in the rubble of Ground Zero. In Who They Were, Dr. Robert C. Shaler, former director of the Forensic Biology Department at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, tells the inside story of the relentless process of DNA identification and depicts the victories and frustrations that he and his team of scientists experienced during more than three years of grueling work.

On September 11, 2001, New York City was unprepared for the mass-fatality event that occurred at the World Trade Center. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had to completely reconfigure itself to process and identify the nearly 20,000 remains that would eventually come through its doors. Facing an astonishing array of obstacles -- from political infighting and an overwhelming bureaucracy to the nearly insurmountable task of corralling personnel and supplies to handle the work -- Shaler and his team quickly established an unprecedented network of cooperation among public agencies and private labs doing cutting-edge research.

More than a story of innovative science at the frontiers of human knowledge, Who They Were also tells the very human story of how Dr. Shaler and his staff forged important and lasting bonds with the families of those who were lost. He shares the agony of mistakes made in the chaos and unintended misidentifications resulting in the excruciating difficulty of having to retrieve remains from families of the lost.

Finally, Dr. Shaler shares how he and the dedicated team of scientists who gave up more than three years of their lives when the rest of the world had moved on had to face the limits of science in dealing with the appalling level of destruction at Ground Zero and concede that no more victims would be sent home to their families. As of April 2005, when the process was suspended, only 1,592 out of the 2,749 who died on that fateful day had been identified.

With compelling prose and insight, Who They Were reveals the previously untold stories of the scientists determined to bring closure to devastated families in the wake of America's largest disaster..
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Can unions and management put their conflicts aside to ensure mutual survival, perhaps even excellence? Can a floundering manufacturer revive itself through Total Quality Management? The answers are ``yes'' at General Motors, and this remarkable book is the first to tell the story. Written by two top executives--one from the powerful United Auto Workers union, the other from auto titan GM--United We Stand profiles the most creative approach yet to TQM. It is the unique and compelling account of how labor and management joined forces to create the ``Quality Network'' that has revitalized both camps and holds promise for any unionized workplace..
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