It seems this cyber talking stick is mine. I'm Annamarie Pluhar and wear (at
least) two hats: I'm Director of Total Quality for a small paper recycling
brokerage (part time), and I'm Executive Director of a non profit I'm creating
called The Television Project.(TVP)
TVP has as its mission: Changing the way Americans use television. It's a
modest goal.
When I read Fifth Discipline it was my intro to systems thinking. My
excitement was that it provided a tool for describing how I understand the
impact of television on our society. Here are two examples;1) the short term
solution of occupying children with the TV, leads to the long term problem of
chidren not developing the skills to occupy themselves.2) Parents learn to be
parents by having been parented, TV disrupts this natural cycle we now have
parents who themselves watched enough TV as children that they don't have the
parenting skills their parents had. The result is increase in physical abuse,
(there's research showing that heavy viewer as children are more likely to be
physically punitive with their children than the norm), and greater dependence
on the television. I supect there is also less development of the skills of
practicing compassion, forgiveness, sacrifice, intimacy etc. I'm working on an
article about this....
The skills required for individual participation in learning organizations are
in sharp contrast to the television culture that so many Americans live
within. Is this a problem for sustaining learning orgs?
Peace,
Annamarie
76507.1755@compuserve.com
P.S. I find the L-O abbreviation aesthetically displeasing- don't know why,
but wondered if anyone else had my reaction....