>>Myrna Casebolt wrote:
>>> snip....
>>> Great question and zeros in on one of my great concerns. Learning takes
>>> place all over the place. I think it was Hoffer who once said that
>>> learners inherit the future...the learned find themselves in a world that
>>> no longer exists. For a long time now, I have thought that we are
>>> evolving towards more acknowledgment of holism.....the idea of
>>> "management" simply has a decreasing role .... the evolutionary rattle is
>>> sounding..... I can see where you would get the idea that the theory of
>>> LO just addresses management issues. Do you think that might be because
>>> we have no subscribers who are lavatory attendants????? (I almost blocked
>>> and deleted that...but stopped myself because I think that we might be
>>> dealing with an elitist issue here....so I'm raising it....what do you
>>> think?)
Hello,
I am not a lavatory attendant but I am classified as a clerk. I
consider myself a front-line worker. My co-workers & friends are the
lavatory attendants, the janitors, the painters, the cashiers in retail
stores. We are paid low wages and are the first to be downsized due to
business decisions and technology replacing people. We are told that
without college degrees we are not capable of thinking , analyzing or
contributing our talents to the organization. (I disagree) Many of us in
this part of the country are polite & courteous to supervisors, managers
and others in the hierarchy but I do not trust them. I acknowledge there
are some excellent managers. One manager who was able to earn my trust to
the point that we would have some interesting conversations asked me if I
was prejudiced against blacks, mexicans, or white people. The answer was
no, I was only prejudiced against managers. It turned out I had an
extreme bias against managers.
>I sometimes feel that this may be true. It may well be that there are no
>>small business managers or factory line managers in the small to medium
>>busines range as well. The notion of a listserv is not a universal. Most
>>of my computer literate friends on the factory floor use AOL or CServe to
>>surf through commercial sites and to download games and shareware. When I
>>can get them interested in taking a look at listservs or newsgroups, it's
>>hard for them to understand the discipline of reading thirty messages
>>about learning every morning, just to learn about learning.
A lady on another listserve I subscribe to asked a very small question.
"Why don't you get involved?" In what?, I replied. Now I'm involved in
two community organization which will assist me in my personal mission
which is to tell everyone about the Internet, listserves and the benefits
to using them.
>>When the principles are applied within the factory, however, it's a
>>different story. The learner wears no uniform and carries no title. The
>>depth of that knowledge, however, is derived from deep cultural issues.
>>We operate here on theoretical, metatheoretical, and occasionally,
>>mystical notions. These menatal models are not readily available to the
>>potential learner. Of the millions of new internet users in the past few
>>years, how many of them do you think share our passion for thinking about
>>learning and organizational behaviour?
I'm one of them that share in your passion for thinking and learning and
organizational behavior. The reason I am is because of an innate
curiousity and because I was in a place that spoke the right words but
their actions did not match
>>It may look elitist, but the reality is not that the janitor is not
>>allowed in. The janitor doesn't have a modem.
It took me a long time to purchase a 386 computer because of the lack of
funds and because I was illterate about computers. I have been reading
(lurking) in the LO for about a year. It has helped me to see the other
point of view and some of the problems associated in a technological
change.
-- ba820@freenet.carleton.ca (Linda E. Dilliplane)