Random Ramblings

In my job, my friends and I often moan about the lack of leadership and vision in public education. I have been lucky enough to have worked for two incredibly visionary principals who were passionate about doing the best we could for kids. Then I worked for someone whose could only articulate his vision for my school as rising test scores. We have a new boss now, one with vision and passion, but he has several years of ruin to try and repair. The difference between leaders with vision and those faux leaders with no personal vision at all aside from doing whatever it takes to fit in and get ahead is very clear when viewed from the inside.

Maybe that is why I mourn the loss of Steve Jobs so much tonight. True vision is so incredibly rare that it should be celebrated whenever one is lucky enough to find it. I am touched by his vision every time I play my iPod, use my iPhone, or type on this iMac or my Macbook. Yes, I am an Apple geek. But who isn't at heart?

I resisted the iPhone for a really long time-until June to be precise. It is just a phone and I am not a lover of cell phones anyway. But I wanted to carry less gadgets, and when they finally broadened beyond AT&T I broke down. And you know what? It is amazing and wonderful and everything people said it was. Of course, it is typically Apple: both perfectly functional and beautiful.

Jobs did amazing things. He lived with such passion. He was a real genius, as an innovator, businessman and showman. But he also made some of the mundane tasks I have to endure every day more enjoyable. I can listen to music as I do almost anything, and I can do it with one small, seemingly simple, beautiful device.

Vision. Passion. We really do need to cherish it and nurture it wherever we find it.