To Create the World That Ought to Be
To Create the World That Ought to Be
A change-making memoir from a visionary educator
The book follows trailblazing teacher and school principal Arnie Langberg through his epic, five-decade career as a heroic reformer of public education, gathering insights into humanity and highlighting innovative, road-tested solutions to pressing problems, while raising potent questions for our collective future along the way.
Purpose
As he approached retirement after 50+ years of storied service transforming schools and the lives of students, Arnie Langberg was ready to tell his story — not only for himself, but also because many in the field of education had been telling him that his story needed to be told. The world needed to hear it.
Fresh out of MIT, Anrie had begun his career as a high-school teacher. It wasn’t long before he became a principal and a founder of innovative schools. A few decades in, he had grown into the roles of district administrator for alternative schools and a sought-after consultant for student-centered education reform, with his schools being featured in books and documentary films.
Another widely respected thought leader in education, Herbert Kohl (founder of the Open Schools movement and author of Growing Minds et al.), had been encouraging Arnie to write a memoir, and Arnie responded that there was so much experience to draw on that he didn’t know where to begin. Herb then suggested to Arnie that what he needed was a good editor to help him tell his story. Arnie asked Herb what qualities he would look for in an editor, and as he listened to Herb’s answer, he thought of just one person: Studio Lungta’s Mark Moore.
Process
Arnie and Mark began a series of conversations and interviews, drawing out Arnie’s story, looking for the through-lines that would speak to anyone interested in how learning and change happen, how the cultures of schools and other organizations can be transformed, and how the life and work of this one remarkable educator could be used as a lens through which to examine these issues. In between these meetings, Arnie would write and Mark would study what Arnie had written, finding questions to explore more deeply. This iterative process stretched over several years and, by the end, Arnie said he found the process was not only an effective way to write the best book he could write but also a powerful catalyst for knowing himself more intimately and understanding his own life with exciting new perspective.
What we did:
Visioneering: We started by considering the author’s aspirations and values and the unique characteristics of the author and his life and work, and we worked together to design a process tailored for these particulars. Mark led Arnie through a process of identifying the first principles that would guide our navigation through a vast and fertile field of experiences and our approach to telling the story.
Storytelling: Through the iterative cycles of interviews, writing, revision, and deepening explorations, we amassed several books worth of rich material. The fascinating challenge then was first to was distill this to the essentials (which Mark humorously referred to as creating “a five-act play in three acts”), and then to find a narrative structure that support the reader to track the through-lines of a decidedly non-linear life. Mark then gave the resulting assembled work some light editing for coherence. Finally, Arnie asked Mark to write a foreword for the book, and to cowrite the afterword with him, creating reflective bookends within the book.
Design and publication: Because the principled principal preferred to use a nonprofit publisher rather than giving his story to a profit-motivated entity, Studio Lungta also handled the layout of the book and the design of its cover, as well as all of the back-end work for ISBN registrations and distribution.
PROJECT AT A GLANCE
Client:
Arnie Langberg (author) and Earthville Press (publisher)
Location:
Produced in Colorado, USA, for global distribution
Scope of Studio Lungta’s work:
Visioneering
Storytelling: interviewing, writing, editing
Design: book layout, cover design
Studio Lungta team members engaged in the project, and their key roles in it:
Visioneering: concept development, first principles, production strategy
Storytelling: interviewing, writing, editing
Design: book layout, cover design
Key collaborators:
Arnie Langberg (the author)
Friends and associates of the author
Connections
You can learn more about Arnie and his educational philosophy at Earthville Press.
To Create the World That Ought to Be is available for purchase worldwide in hardcover, paperback, and eBook formats.
Print:
Bookshop.org (supporting small, local bookstores)
Also available for order now at most bookshops and online booksellers (including Barnes & Noble, et al.)
Digital eBooks:
If you’d like to explore how Studio Lungta might help you tell your story to the world, you can reach out to us here.
