March 9, 2010 (GBN News): Two days after being featured in a NY Times Magazine cover story, noted education consultant Doug Lemov has been hired by embattled Toyota to head up a cutting edge project aimed at re-establishing the company’s reputation. While the project has been cloaked in secrecy, sources at the company told GBN News that Mr. Lemov, who has no automotive experience, has come up with a process aimed at training factory workers to “recreate Toyota vehicles from the ground up”.
The new, retooled Toyotas will reportedly be built around a unique Lemov innovation, which insiders say will “revolutionize” the auto industry. While no name has yet been given to this invention, Mr. Lemov is said to be leaning towards calling it, “the wheel”.
In a move reportedly urged by Mr. Lemov, Toyota President and CEO Akio Toyoda also announced today that, effective immediately, the company is firing all of its technicians and production workers. Mr. Lemov is said to have cited research studies to convince Mr. Toyoda that the quality of a car depends solely on “good workers”, while factors such as the integrity of the materials, technology and working conditions are largely irrelevant. Mr. Lemov will be training the replacement workers based on the same 49 point taxonomy with which he trains new teachers.
J. Fredrick Runson, professor of automotive education at Manhattan Technical College, thinks that Mr. Lemov may prove to be the perfect man for the job. “He’s already shown a genius for repackaging as his own innovations a bunch of techniques that teachers have used for years,” he told GBN News. “He was even able to convince a very smart education writer, Elizabeth Green, that he’s on to something new. So I have no doubt that he can convince the automobile consumer that Toyota’s 'wheel' is a must-have.”
6 comments:
Hehehe. Will Whitney Tilson be is assistant?
will Elizabeth Green be there to chronicle the event?
Wow! Hate much? You'd think that someone who actually looked for good teaching techniques nationwide, categorized them and was willing to share them widely would a least get some small bit of respect.
Waiting for the next, equal opportunity satire skewering folks who think class size is the answer for everything.
Or skewering anonymous blog commenters. Look, nothing against Lemov's techniques, I'm sure many of them are very useful. It's just that to say that this is all new stuff, and that somehow teachers (and schools of education)have been unaware of these techniques all this time is just another excuse for the wholesale bashing of (and firing of) teachers who don't buy into the latest ed reform fads. Ed reporters like Elizabeth Green (who I have actually always respected for her fine work at the NY Sun and Gotham Schools) would do better to study and write more about those with broad, well rounded knowledge of the field like Diane Ravitch, Debbie Meier, Linda Darling-Hammond and, yes, Leonie Haimson, as well as those who have spent years in the trenches like Norm Scott, rather than blindly swallowing the latest PR.
HA HA HA HA!
Satire is the best catharsis...keeps you laughing so you don't cry.
I hope the education Guru could really help for the devastating loss that Toyota has had. Let us hope for the best for the automotive industry.
Peter Jonas
www ces.org
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