After several hectic days in Berlin, I flew to the UK to visit close friends who have a new place in Somerset, a couple of hours southwest of London. We lunched at a wonderful pub in Winchester, drove past Stonehenge, and on to Wincanton. It is so relaxing to be surrounded by well-manicured farms on rolling hills. No McDonalds, no KFC, no Pizza Huts.
Wells Cathedral is a magnificent medieval structure. The facade is covered in statues. The nave inside is contained by magnificent scissors arches.
I’ve been telling the story of Hans Mondeman, the Dutch traffic engineer who dramatically lowers accident rates by removing signs. England is covered with narrow lanes. Roads like these keep your speed and distractions in check.
To my mind, removing the grades and the prohibitions from learning can improve leaning. Don’t call them learners. Treat them as people. Clear away the restrictions. Let them learn at an appropriate rate.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jay,
I absolutey agree with:
“To my mind, removing the grades and the prohibitions from learning can improve leaning. Don’t call them learners. Treat them as people. Clear away the restrictions. Let them learn at an appropriate rate.”
But how do we explain the importance of this to companies? They want to measure everything. Even some of my very progressive clients find it difficult to come to terms with “unmeasured” learning.
The effect of learning may be measured by increase in productivity, but then again the increase in productivity could be because of the new computers, or the user friendly environment, or the vacation that employees took. They want to know how much of it can be attributed to their employees “learning” by formal or informal means.
To some extend I can understand their need to measure. If they have to create an infrastructure for learning (as in books, media, trainers, equipment, time allocation, etc), they need to know the cost benefit ratio.
Do you have any thoughts on how we can bridge the gap between the need for companies to measure and promote learning as something that should not be evaluated by grades?
Regards
parag
Parag, you pressed one of my hot buttons. I’ve been on this particular crusade for years. See, for example, http://www.internettime.com/Learning/Metrics.htm
Here’s the opinion of Tom Stewart, editor of Harvard Business Review: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure is one of the oldest clichés in management, and it’s either false or meaningless. It’s false in that companies have always managed things–people, morale, strategy, etc.–that are essentially unmeasured. It’s meaningless in the sense that everything in business–including people, morale, strategy, etc.–eventually shows up in someone’s ledger of costs or revenues. Measurement, in other words, is a worldview, not just a scorecard. It is a means of thinking and acting, as well as measuring.”