Michael Erickson describes a rather poignant experience he had with a prof
in college complaining about the low quality of the students he was
getting.
The faculty did not understand in the 60s-80s -- in fact almost no one
understood -- that the demographics of students were changing more rapidly
than they had ever before or are likely to in the future. The educational
system, designed to support white middle class males, was all of a sudden
being asked to effectively educate a whole raft of have-nots who had not
previously had any motivation for college.
One outcome was the aptitude scores, for what they are worth, declined.
Another outcome was that individual professors were being asked to work
with a declining 'quality' of student. We now know in part that the
decline in quality was due to a k-12 system not geared for the learning
styles of anyone except white males. At the micro scale, the prof noticed
a declining quality. At the macro scale, the demographics were broadening
to include people previously outside the system. We now know that the
control group, white middle-class males, did not have declining scores,
and probably did not cause the prof to perceive lower quality. However,
the overall mix did show a decline for the professor.
>From the systemic perspective, we would now say that the perceived
decline in quality was actually te outcome of broadened demographics. The
problem was not the students, it was a system inadequate to and blind to
the task.
One of its unintended outcomes was the personal, painful stories told by
Michael. Thank you for sharing this, Michael. We all learn from the
stories.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>