Most days I post a tweet on Twitter about transforming our schools so that they work well for everyone. These tweets also get automatically posted on Facebook and on Linked. Once in awhile I get a response from someone, but most often I never know if the tweet has been helpful to others or not.

This morning, I wondered if I was wasting my time. There are so many others who are writing about the same thing and yet in looking back I don't see a true transformation happening in our schools. Maybe, I wondered, I should give my attention to another topic. What others and I have been writing about doesn't seem to have mattered.

But then as I wondered, a story I had heard many years ago came to mind. It's the story of a man and some starfish. It was told by Wally "Famous" Amos, the cookie man.

I googled the story and found it, and here it is:

Early one morning, a young man was walking down a beach and another man noticed that the young man often stopped, picked up a starfish that had washed up in the tide and he threw it back into the ocean. He did it again, several times, for there were a lot of starfish washed up on the beach.

The other man approached the young man and said, "You know, you can't possibly make a difference. There are just far too many of these starfish to save them all."

The young man looked at him, bent down and picked up a starfish. He threw it into the ocean and said, "Well, that may be, but I just made a difference in the world to that one, and that one, and that one..."

Keeping that thought in mind, I'm going to continue tweeting and writing about transforming our schools and possibly, just possibly, something I write may make a difference to one person, who in turn may make a difference to another, who in turn may do the same.