unimagined futures

Developing a work approach that is adequate to the challenges ahead
a world moving toward new and different futureS

Education: an outside view

This is a working draft. It is also an attention directing tool.

Why should your brain want to go down this road?

Most everybody has untested assumptions based on yesterday. Assumptions that don't fit reality and therefore work against us. Using these assumptions to plan one's work and life may not lead where we expect. Also a lot of our money and energy is pumped into the education system that is wasted or misdirected toward the already disproved ideas of yesterday—see below.

I'm not a professional educator—and don't want to be. I am a user of education. I am also a provider of an action aimed self-education process—this web site. The purpose of this process is not certification or test scores but substantial results in the world outside of the individual—a society of organizations. The purpose is raise individual contribution and capability through awareness and a methodology.

A little of my history: Around 1980 I was a corporate restructuring executive for a diversified Fortune 200 company. Prior to that I worked with the many divisions on their financial planning. In all this time I've worked with over 60 organizations. I've had plenty of exposure to the products of the education system. At no time have I run across anyone applying an education aimed at the outside world moving in time—management. There were plenty of product people and a some tools people (MBAs), but no one practicing management. If someone pointed out that their industry was being turned over every five years, no one would pay the slightest attention. Only by accident did I discover Peter Drucker—see below.

More Troubling History: For decades GM and Sears were giants and models for the organizational world. Then the bleeding started and no one in the organization was able to deal with it. At one time IBM was spending billions on research and development plus millions on employee development. Then they had a crisis and had to bring in an outsider to "help." See Warren Buffett's take on the makers of the modern world.

What about corruption in politics? Why do the citizens of Illinois put up with one corrupt governor after another? Who were the politicians that said that "the economy was fundamentally strong."

All of the above is a reflection on the education system.

Role of the education system: Why should we even bother with an education system unless it leads to something outside of the system itself? Are we happy with the system?

Is the purpose of the system to provide jobs for teachers and administrators or to build schools? Is the purpose to make kids do pointless work and just keep them off the street?

I know that a college degree is a passport to careers. I know there is a statistical association between personal income and educational attainment. Yet I think we need to seriously challenge the functional association—how the world works. A view of the malfunction can be seen in the financial and economic crisis of 2008 that has been building for decades.

Another test of that functional association can be seen in the performance and job turnover of CEOs, Chief Marketing Officers and the like. These people are the bottle neck. They also facilitate the misdirection of the system by the hiring practices they support.

Regardless of what people can answer on a test, what gets applied in the outside world is what matters—in what we know to do and actually do. See Managing Oneself for an introduction.

Also its not hard to look at the courses offered in the education system and identify where and to what extent they fit in the outside world. In today's world what really needs to be taught and learned? This can't be answered by going to the educational experts or to the "run of the mill outside leaders"—their mental patterns were formed under a different set of circumstances. On top of a foundational layer of capability a merger of managing oneself and my conceptual resource digestion process might provide a initial hint.

Edward de Bono on creativity

Peter Drucker to the rescue

Peter Drucker has been writing about a changing world for decades—bibliography and outline. In his work he has specifically addressed the education system both directly and indirectly. Reviewing the outline in reverse order will help identify areas for further concept harvesting.

Some specific text to find in the outline.

Knowledge society

Educat (will locate education and educated)

Teaching

Learning

New productivity challenge

Profit

What really ails the U.S. auto industry

A century of social transformation

Some additional links to explore

Concept of the corporation

The Management Revolution

An outline of the education related chapters from Post Capitalist Society

How many students in the American education system get any exposure to Edward de Bono's work on thinking?

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List of topics in this Folder

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See conceptual resource book list for a categoried list of book outlines and conceptual resources for a usage methodology.

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