Michael Erickson wrote:
[snip]
>If you have something to do with education, help your students see
>reality. Show them the history of the world, and the path the human race
>has taken through all the wars, famines, epidemics and just plain
>foolishness we've inflicted on ourselves. Help them appreciate quality
>and craftsmanship teach them to care about each other and to work
>together. These are far more critical than adding numbers or pushing
>words around.
>
>These make the corporation, business and community of our future live for
>the better and grow towards a civilization that is truly civil and worth
>participating in.
Thaks for your post, Michael: you've certainly put your finger on
some interesting, important topics. Isn't it fascinating that working
together and seeking to learn from others' experience is the stuff of
which wisdom is made - and even more interesting that it is very tough
indeed to "teach" this. Those students for whom this message is obvious,
learn on their own regardless of what we do to them; those for whom this
is mystery dismiss it as "merely history" and "academic," often seeking
instead to embrace the purely technical as somehow more real, useful or
relevant - despite the fact that many of the numbers they produce are just
artifacts. I'm thinking now of all the finance emphasis in schools of
business, where learning to learn, and learning interpersonal and team
skills as well as history are so often dismissed as "soft stuff" of little
importance. Sigh.
Sam
MXJELI@MAIL.WM.EDU
Mariann Jelinek
Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business
Graduate School of Business,
College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tel. (804) 221-2882 FAX: (804) 229-6135
************************************************************************
The only enduring strategic advantage is the ability
to change the rules of the game.
--mxjeli@mail.wm.edu (Mariann Jelinek)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>