Are We Returning to the Middle Ages?

Educators have known since Socrates that maximizing exchange with and between students while encouraging conversation and debate, to be a key to improving learning.  

Today's teachers are frustrated by the fact that they cannot pursue those and other effective approaches because of a myriad of reasons.  The bottom line is that we do design Learning Events, but they are only partially effective at allowing or encouraging learners to function interactively.  

Students all too often, aside from their immediate circle of friends, are not involved with nor do they have any desire to know what their classmates are interested in or what they have found to be easy or difficult.  In college lecture settings with lecture halls full of students, Learning Events are more like concerts than classes.  In those settings learning is very much an individual affair.  

The current trend in education is toward less emphasis on dialog between learners.  Teachers today must rely on what test results tell them.  Some experimental schools are taking this model even further as they encourage independent study and self-paced learning.  Computer Managed Instruction models use algorithms to make decisions as to what the student needs next and when they have reached competency in a particular subject.  Technology has allowed teacher span-of-control to increase reducing costs, but with a corresponding reduction in time available for one-on-one instruction.  

In these new schools teachers use their time to manage learning problems, as signaled by the Computer Managed Instruction algorithm.  Typically small group sessions are only conducted with groups of students having similar challenges. 

I find it interesting that in this model the students who have the easiest time learning the content are the ones that get the least opportunity to work in groups, a destructive archetype.  

Yes, our current education systems and new innovations do create "Learning" although more self-contained.  

We need to look very carefully at the impact being made in the area of Online Education. 

Albert Einstein said: “I fear the day that technology will surpass or human interaction.  The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Each new program struggles with Einstein’s humorous insight currently being demonstrated by the contradictions being created.  For example; How to be online or distant and meet the need for contact with the teacher and other students?  Such contradictions create complicating concepts and new terminologies emerge in the vocabulary of training design.  We now have descriptive terms like Distance Education, Residency Requirement, Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning, Online Education, E-learning, Computer-Based Training, Computer Managed Instruction all provided to help describe available options.  

The process of choosing a college or degree program has become more complicated than ever.  Those in the process of making those decisions today have begun to realize that having a degree means little if the holder does not have true competence in the subject.  No successful company is going to compensate us for incompetence, at least for long.  

It is true that technology has opened many new avenues in education, but has also impacted the quality of training effectiveness and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. 

Impact of Human Capital

The importance of having people in the right assignments cannot be over stressed.  Developing and positioning people are key responsibilities for all managers.  When we focus on “people” we learn quickly that it is important to see them as “individuals.”  Successful companies have started to look at the competency requirements in their organizations and matching the competencies of its individual people to those roles.  The result of this approach is predictable in that each person is found to have a unique set of abilities and learning needs leading to establishment of individual training plans with ownership and responsibility for execution of those plans being shared between the employee and their manager.  Today’s managers many times do not have the time or expertise to handle these new important responsibilities.  

Transitioning to this type environment and making it work is extremely difficult, particularly for older well established organizations.  Training and development organizations also are challenged to change and must adapt to a model resembling a cafeteria format from what was probably more like a home style restaurant.  The need for competency evaluation becomes critical and those evaluations must be timely and accurate.   As the need to create Project Teams, Change Management Teams and other small organizations with specific progress missions emerge we start to see the importance of accurately understanding the learning needs of each individual and how to balance their abilities and needs within each organization.  The question becomes: “Does the team have the balance of skills needed to accomplish the mission?”  Each person is actually a unique System offering unique sets of explicit and tacit knowledge that ultimately define their ability to add value.  The ultimate question becomes, "What can you do?” not, "What can you discuss?"  Adding value is the ultimate requirement of us all. 

Value Creation is the joint responsibility of each employee and management.

We used to think that the best way to train people was to make them all alike.  We would test against a standard set of criteria and then train to make everyone equal.  We would not focus on what we already knew, but work diligently on what you did not know.  Everyone would work on things that did not know or like while and not devoting time to work on the things in which they excelled. 

Imagine an orchestra being managed in that manner.

Variability in knowledge is one of the components of diversity.  The question becomes: “Is diversity extra weight or GOLD?”  We must not forget that with great diversity comes great opportunity. 

Essay on Technical Education

On Sunday (13 April, 2008) I watched the show "Awareness" on WISTV and was inspired to share with you some of my ideas in this short essay.

During that program it was stated that we have approximately a 25% drop-out rate at about the 9^th grade level in South Carolina. The entire first segment Sunday was on the future of these drop-outs, particularly as it relates to their future job availability. The thing that I think was missing in the discussion during that show was any articulation of why these people tend to drop out at about the 9th grade level. There continues to be a need to work on the "before 9th grade" part of the problem.

Our current system of education in South Carolina in some cases is simply functioning as a filter, not an educator. The majority of the dialog that I have seen in the media recently was between college graduates that, to that 25% group, appear to be the academically elite talking about how to go to college and how to persuade or enable everyone to be like them.

It is evident, even when shown as good examples in the media, those that do go back to school and earn their GED and even beyond, are put in a special and separate category.

The SC Technical Colleges are spinning themselves as a means to get to and through a four-year college degree. I have watched the process over the last forty years that have led to the SC Technical Colleges current success of now being acceptable for college credit for most of the major universities.

In my opinion this success has come at a price regarding the original focus and even the current Mission and Vision of Technical Education in our state.  The 25% that are dropping out of school early are the ones that today, for multiple reasons, cannot see themselves surviving in an academic path. Humiliated, maybe even covertly, they just give up. There is truly no path obvious to this group that makes them want to continue. We need a means for these people to know about and see as viable the other options available to them. They need to be able to "drop-into", a different path of education.

When the Technical Schools were created in the 1960s, they did a better job of representing an alternative path. One could actually build a Life Strategy that ended with developing and applying a marketable skill obtained at a SC Technical school. It was possible to choose that path and not be seen as some sort of non-performer.

Presently some of our Technical Schools seem to be "Want-to-be-Universities". In this current environment I wonder what the ratio is between time/resources spent negotiating with the universities to achieve transfer accreditation and time/resources spent in working with industry to determining curriculum changes needed to stay in touch with industrial needs.

And even further, the loss of agility to make desired/recommended changes due to the impact on previously achieved agreements on accreditation. Do we even have the knowledge base or time availability of staff to accurately assess the industrial need Vs current curriculum?

Today, advisers at all grade levels must be aware of the message that is received when the student that they are helping make life strategy decisions realize that they, the adviser, and most these recruiters and professors that now work in the Technical School organization chose the four-year (or higher) degree path. There is a need for mentors to be examples of where we are advising the student to go. One problem is that we almost hide our non-four year successes. Pure Technical School Graduates are not celebrated. They, the graduates, in many cases are not proud of the source of their education.

To be effective as a mentor to that target 25% group one has to be able to show how they did it without ever having achieved that four year degree. A mentor holding a Ph.D. cannot do it!

In summary, the current risk and reality is that the Technical Schools are being sold largely as another bridge to the place that 25% group, cannot see themselves going. The feeling is that if they go to Tech and do not eventually achieve their four year degree they risk never feeling the pride of success.

If we continue on our current path our Technical Schools will simply blend into the higher education landscape without being distinguished as that much needed alternative path.

As with all progress we must plan strategy from where we are. The answer is not to undo all of the good things that have been done, but to restore the good part of our history that has been abandoned.

Essay by: David C. Mims – Sr.

AAS/EET Midlands-Technical College, Columbia South, Carolina (Honors 1970)

An Irony of life! The Paradox of Willingness to Share Vs Willingness to Receive

As we live our lives we gain experience.  Everyone agrees that at the end of life we have had the opportunity to see, hear and experience a unique set of lessons that each of us own and want to share.  Yes, it can be said that life is a learning event.

The paradox lies in the fact that our ability to be respected for what we know diminishes as one reaches the end of life.  Others see us through their eyes making assumptions that our life long developed beliefs are not credible because of our age.  Statements like, “I’m not buying it, that old fool only believes that because s/he knows that they are getting ready to die!” become common.  This issue only gets exaggerated in cases where there has been a diagnosis of a terminal illness or confrontation with certain near term death. 

To find disesteem by those that we want to help the most creates a sense of helplessness.  In these cases the result is that a possibly most credible resource is treated with the least respect.  What a waste!

Mitigation for this risk in life is to follow the following model:

• .      Learn from your elders early.  You never know when they will be gone.
• .      Develop your firm beliefs early in life so that you will not need to change as you get older.
• .      Pray for guidance as often as you can.  

The possibilities in life are ever changing and you will need to make choices continually.  Never forget, it is possible to choose wrong!

Managing the Project of Life

In the business of Project Management as an engineering science the challenge is to obtain a defined result by a specific point in time and for a predetermined budget of resources.  In the methodologies that aid in managing projects there are many techniques aimed at identifying risks, deciding which risks are most likely and their impact.  Then discovering and putting in place mitigations that improve the probability of the project being successful.

Project risks are always problematic because of constrained time and resources. 

Imagine how we could operate if there were no limits in time or resources.  What if the project objective was defined by an infinite set of resources and outcomes? 

In God’s infinity we have such a paradigm.  In quantum world all things are possible and all things exist.  The fact that I am sitting here writing this is one of those possibilities and the fact that you are reading it is yet another.  I have no way to know either who will eventually read this or what impact it will have.

Humans like me, and I suspect you, experience a limit to being able to fully understand God's plan.  In the history of His revelation of Himself to us we find expansive amounts of time and generations of people who lived to create conditions needed for His lessons to be taught to humanity.

The concept of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) stands at the center of all lessons taught to date.  The “Father” represents the Love and Grace of God, the “Son” was the demonstrator and Teacher of how we are to behave in life, and God the “Holy Spirit” is the infinite nature of God that spans all time and creation.  All three are with us as we live our lives.

It is our impatience that makes the lessons taught to date ineffective.  We want our lives to matter, We want instant gratification, we want our Church to be successful, and we want to see our understanding of the plan completed in our lifetime.

As we live our lives and eventually die we must take comfort in knowing that whatever happens, God’s plan has already succeeded.  Our contributions may not be obvious as we live our lives but be assured that our contributions do matter. 

We must remember that Gods patience is unlimited.  In essence there are contingencies and resources in His plan to mitigate any risk that our decisions may create.  When time is unlimited all things are possible.  God already has results as He exists in the infinite. 

As we live our lives all action possibilities are known before we choose; however, the evaluation of our actual choices is knowable in the context of the quantum plan as soon as we make them.  There are no choices that we can make that will cause God’s plan to be ineffective; but, there are choices that we can make that are considered wrong. We can and do impact each other.

At the end of our individual lives our evaluation will be based on the choices we made.  Did we appreciate the Grace and Love of God the Father, did we follow the example of God the Son, Jesus Christ and did we follow the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit? 

Someone once said, “Did you love?”

As I say in the header of this Blog:

“The space between yesterday and tomorrow, the only lever that we have!” 

As I live my day to day life the question can only be, what am I going to do now?  I must remember that even inaction is a decision.

After all, I am a Project Manager and must do something!  

By: David Connor Mims Sr.

At the Moment of Death

It is said that at the moment of death we see our whole life pass before our eyes.  That we will see everything that has happened to us since the day we were born.

I think that it is true.  As we stand at the point of death we will be confronted with our first experience with life after death which almost certainly is infinite. We in fact will see God for the first time.

In the context of infinity time does not exist meaning that all things that can happen do.  In physics this is known as the state of singularity.  In quantum mechanics a singularity is said to possess the properties in which all things are simultaneously possible. All calculations in this realm are in the form of probabilities.  Our lives make real those things that were not only probable but in fact happen.  At death our lives are seen in the context of NO TIME; hence that movie in review.

The warning that we can understand in realizing this is that we must be aware of the importance of our opportunities and choices made as we live.  The consequences of our choices are so interdependent with all others living their lives.  Choices, once made, can not be undone.  Our choices impact the opportunities of others, positively and negatively.

Choosing well at each decision point in life ultimately results in having lived well.

My prayer is, "God please be with me at each decision point in my life and help me choose well!"

America's Choice in 2012

When our founders designed the three branches of government it was patterned after the three legged stool. Three legged stools do not not require a perfectly flat surface to be stable. With the addition of a fourth branch of government, e.g. the media, we now have the same requirement as the four legged stool, a perfectly flat surface, for stability to be achieved. The problem is that there is no

perfectly flat surface in nature. The current system will, by design, never be stable. The irony is that this is exactly what the new "fourth branch of government" needs to self sustain. This, my fellow Americans, is a systemic problem that is not solvable without system redesign, or in this case restoration. We can define the 2012 choice as: Democrats - Redesign as a Progressive Model; Republicans - Restore to Original Founders Model.