Stephan, in LO12950 responding to Fran (LO12940) said:
>For me teaching about LOs and still having the old administration is the >same
as managers who do not 'walk the talk'. A best case scenario for me >is a type
of Higher Ed where nothing on LO has to be taught because it >already is a
learning environment, and the only thing students have to do >is to copy the
behavior of their 'teachers', 'coaches', ... Whatever >students see, it is a
kind of mental model that they get 'implanted'. Why >not 'implant' a new one?
Without intending to be overly critical, this thinking -- it's reallly
someone else's fault -- is exactly what we need to avoid. Faculty blames
it on administrators, administrators blame it on the president, the
president blames it on the board, the board blames it lack of financial
support or on the alumni, and so forth.
There is no best place for LO thinking to start, it can and must start
everywhere. The best thing anyone can do is start it tomorrow in those
areas where they have the most influence. Good ol' Scott keeps talking
about the square wheels, the square wheels are us.
I caught myself being a square wheel just the other day. My staff reports
once a month on certain status, and it a litany of what is working and
what is not. So I asked instead of a broad categorization of what was
working best and worst in terms of general themes. I got that because I
asked for it, but still no thinking, so then I asked, "well, how do you
think you should extrapolate the successes and failures in order to create
more successes?" Blank looks. They did not realize that my goal all
along was to create an environment where learning could occur and they
could start to work toward making things better. Well, I've learned
something. It's a lot of work to create an LO whether my boss supports it
or not. It depends on me in my little corner of the world.
--Rol Fessenden 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>