Timothy R. Clark

Lone Peak High School calculus teacher Craig Smith teaches one of his classes.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Lone Peak High teacher uses calculus to teach about life

Craig Smith has seen a 777 percent increase in the pass rate in calculus at Lone Peak High School since he started teaching the subject in 2007. He says the subject is “a microcosm of life.”

By Timothy R. Clark

The Internet has also become the great tranquilizer. What is all of the gaming, gossiping and gambling doing for us? As a planet we spend 3 billion hours a week playing games on the Internet. Just the other day, an online poker company sold for more than

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: The Internet is the great equalizer, tranquilizer

Knowing my children learn more from my example than from anything I say, I’ve been moved to serious reflection about what I’m teaching them about the Internet. The Internet is both amazing and terrible. It is both an equalizer and a tranquiliz

By Timothy R. Clark

If you were to build a university from scratch in 2014, would you create traditional academic degrees in psychology, history, English, classics, humanities, or political science? Maybe not.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: A new kind of university: Modular degrees for our children’s needs

If you were to build a university from scratch in 2014, would you create traditional academic degrees in psychology, history, English, classics, humanities, or political science? Maybe not.

By Timothy R. Clark

FILE - In this March 12, 2013, file photo, Rutgers coach Mike Rice yells out to his team during an NCAA college basketball game against DePaul at the Big East tournament in New York. The videotape, broadcast Tuesday, April 2, on ESPN, prompted scores of o

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: The ‘tell-yell’ model of coaching

Coaches occupy uncommon status in American society. Because a large swath of humanity worships at the altar of sports, we confer on our coaches both the expectation to win and the mandate to lead. But the mandate to lead is not in the collaborative sense of the word. We often give our coaches — at least this has been the historical pattern — permission to mislead.

By Timothy R. Clark

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Give people a license to disagree

Why does giving others a license to disagree matter so much? Two reasons: First, it creates superior performance through the friction of rich dialogue. Second, it’s the one behavioral practice most responsible for building confidence in others.

By Timothy R. Clark

The U.S. Capitol is seen under an overcast sky at dawn, Monday, Oct. 7, 2013, at the Capitol in Washington.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: The outfoxed Republican Party

The Republican Party has been outfoxed in its attempt to put the full faith and credit of the United States on the line and for making a rogue attempt to defund Obamacare.

By Timothy R. Clark

As all parents and teachers know, the emotional and the intellectual are inseparably connected. In other words, learning requires confidence. Children don’t learn ahead of the confidence they possess. Without confidence, they eventually stop trying.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: A call to action as our children return to school

We are all commissioned to protect, lift, and encourage the nation’s youth, to love them by setting a good example and by taking a genuine interest in their success.

By Timothy R. Clark

They didn’t ask me to speak at your high school commencement, which saved you from the height of embarrassment. But that was last week.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Graduation advice for my daughter

Graduation advice for my daughter: Bless people. Don’t worry about impressing them. And when God blesses you, enjoy the blessing and be thankful.

By Timothy R. Clark

People are born curious. Just watch toddlers. They meet each day with a sense of wonder. But with many of us, something happened on the way to adulthood and our curiosity flamed out.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Real job creation requires finding ways to make people curious

We need more curious people chasing more problems of interest. That’s a jobs bill that needs to be sponsored in every house.

By Timothy R. Clark

There has been a steady rise in careerism in Congress as witnessed by the steady rise in the average tenure of service. But the most telling statistic is the average percentage of senators and House members who seek re-election: 90 percent.

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Elected office was never intended to be a career

Too many members of Congress have delusions of grandeur, believing the nation would suffer if they left voluntarily.

By Timothy R. Clark

Clay Olsen speaks to students during the "Fight the New Drug" assembly at South Hills Middle School in Riverton on Wednesday, October 26, 2011. "Fight the New Drug" is a youth driven organization dedicated to raising awareness on the addictive and harmfu

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: Pornography has no true believers

When it comes to pornography, there are no true believers. We protect the devil’s own cesspool on grounds of free speech and tolerance.

By Timothy R. Clark

Opinion

Timothy R. Clark: The key to education reform will be measurement

The biggest challenges in education are access, quality and cost. But that’s going to change. In the next decade, I predict the key to comprehensive reform will be our ability to measure actual learning.

By Timothy R. Clark

At the Home Thrift Association in Yorkville, a German neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, Dorothy Lamparter fills out the applications of youngsters seeking to join the association, Jan. 22, 1942. The organization instructs children in good citizenship.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Financial lessons from World War II show principles of thrift, industry

If we take a close look at American society during World War II, we find lost principles that need to be dusted off and put into use again: the basic principles of thrift and industry that allowed us to persevere, win the war and enter a period of extended prosperity.

By Timothy R. Clark

In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, President Abraham Lincoln, seated and holding his spectacles and a pencil on Feb. 5, 1865. Abraham Lincoln said, “I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece o

Business

Timothy R. Clark: The movement from sheep-dipping to slow dripping in employee development

Abraham Lincoln said, “I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel — very hard to scratch anything on it, and almost impossible thereafter to rub it out.”

By Timothy R. Clark

In this 2009 photo provided by the star of TLC\'s \"Cake Boss,\" Buddy Valastro, is shown outside his family bakery in Hoboken, N.J.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: How the Cake Boss builds culture

Did you know the modeling behavior of the leader is the single most important factor in building culture? If you don’t think so, meet my friend the Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro.

By Timothy R. Clark

U.S. & World

Timothy R. Clark: How dysfunctional and resistant to change is your organization?

On a 1-to-5 scale, where 1 is low and 5 is high, how resistant to change is your organization? Consider two principles:

By Timothy R. Clark

Hostess trucks sit idle at the Hostess Ogden faciilty Friday, Nov. 16, 2012.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Hostess is ‘Lost in the Fifties Tonight’

The biggest obstacles to change often come in extricating ourselves from the status quo.

By Timothy R. Clark

This July 13, 2011, photo made available on the International Security Assistance Force's Flickr website shows the former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Gen. Davis Petraeus, left, shaking hands with Paula

Business

Timothy R. Clark: The CEO’s boiling hormones and a river of fire

A week ago, three top American executives resigned or were cashiered over allegations and admissions of sexual misconduct — Gen. David Patraeus of the CIA, Chris Kubasik of Lockheed Martin and Joe Rogers Jr. of Waffle House. They forgot that stewardship is moral responsibility for yourself, others and the resources we share.

By Timothy R. Clark

Business

Timothy R. Clark: U.S. needs a ‘wise and frugal government’

The terrifying thing about the American presidency is that an untested person can become president. A person without a solid record of achievement or deeply held convictions can win on words.

By Timothy R. Clark

FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2012, file photo, Lance Armstrong considers a question from a reporter after his second-place finish in the Power of Four mountain bicycle race at the base of Aspen Mountain in Aspen, Colo. The United States Anti-Doping Agency is s

Sports

Timothy R. Clark: An open letter to Lance Armstrong

We have always admired you, but now that admiration has turned to disappointment, and in time that disappointment could turn to pity. As a role model, you are in a free fall.

By Timothy R. Clark

FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2008 file photo, production team member Phillip Hicks installs a door on a Toyota Camry on the assembly line at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky plant in Georgetown, Ky. Toyota executives were unfazed Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012

Business

Timothy R. Clark: How to diagnose a sick organization

Toyota is sick again. In 2009, the company issued a recall for cars that had a defective accelerator. Last week it announced another recall, this time the biggest in history, due to power windows that pose a fire hazard.

By Timothy R. Clark

Business

Timothy R. Clark: You can play ball, but can you coach?

In a past column, I talked about the importance of coachability — the willingness to receive guidance, support and correction. Now let’s talk about the one doing the coaching. When you achieve world-class performance in something, you qualify to be a world-class coach, right? Wrong.

By Timothy R. Clark

Yosemite National Park Ranger Jesse McGahey inspects an abandon rope at the base of El Capitan Wednesday, August 22, 2007. Climbing, like debt, comes with inherent risks and consequences that can't be avoided.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Adding to our debt is like free climbing El Capitan

Sometimes we want to pick up the freedom end and saw off the accountability end. We may even look for opportunities to cheat choices of their natural consequences, as if that were possible. The best we can do is delay them.

By Timothy R. Clark

There are some choices that produce glacial consequences.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Adding to our debt is like freeclimbing El Capitan

Freedom can’t be divorced from accountability. Choice can’t be separated from consequence. They are opposite ends of the same stick. When you pick up one end, you pick up the other.

By Timothy R. Clark

Taysom Hill (4) of the Brigham Young Cougars celebrates scoring BYU's touchdown during NCAA football in Boise, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012. Are there lessons of enduring value to take from football?

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Learning life’s lessons from football

Are there lessons of enduring value to take along with the scar tissue, the limp and the arthritis? I can’t run around the yard with my kids anymore. That’s a high price to pay. So what do I have to show for it?

By Timothy R. Clark

We have on our hands today an ever-growing ethics problem. Organizations are now in the position of trying to implant ethics in people.

Business

Timothy R. Clark: Can you microwave ethical development?

We have on our hands today an ever-growing ethics problem, whose tentacles are reaching everywhere. The unscrupulous business person is ubiquitous. Organizations are now in the bleak position of trying to implant ethics in people for whom none were ever planted in the first place.

By Timothy R. Clark