In today’s internet savvy age, many schools have become wired. Internet professionals throughout the industry have become aware of the technological advances in schools, either through observing the progress of their own school-age children, working in the education technology field, or consulting with schools seeking to advance their technological toe hold.
But how effective is the use of internet in schools? Of course, schools must be very cautious and install extensive filtration systems so that children can not access inappropriate web sites. As anyone knows who has worked in a filtered system, this does block many web sites that could be perfectly educational, so there is certainly some frustration with the internet in schools on the part of both students and teachers.
Another frustration arises when schools isolate computers into specific computer classrooms and do not integrate them into the everyday school experience. Unlike workers in today’s marketplace, students have limited exposure to technology, spending most of their class time in a more old-fashioned setting. There are numerous reasons for this, and when teachers weigh in on the situation, it certainly does begin to look complex. As educational as computers are, they do distract students from lectures and other instructional opportunities and teachers often find that the need for “immediate gratification” that computers provide does students a disservice in the long run, when so much of school involves lengthy study and ongoing learning whose results and benefits are not known until adulthood.
IT workers today have also weighed in on the conundrum of computers in schools, and many criticize teachers for being slow in acquiring computer skills. It is true, many teachers are less computer literate than their first and second grade students! This leads to misunderstandings about computer homework and misinformation where internet research is involved. Many IT professionals in schools today note that students need teachers who can inform them as to how to test internet-accessed information for factuality.
Many students are misusing technology in the sense that they take anything learned online for granted, assuming it is true. Students are not being informed of the anything-goes nature of the internet and of the fact that much of their online “research” is yielding opinion, conspiracy theory, and personal memoir masquerading as historical fact. Computer classes do tend to provide this information, but many IT professionals bemoan the very idea of a “computer class.” They say that because computers are so integral to our lives today, every class should integrate computers and every teacher should remind students of appropriate research techniques.
Librarians in schools are also having much different duties today than they once did. With fewer and fewer students utilizing library books for research, librarians are managing a lot more online content and providing far more digital media than before. It has changed the way people do research, certainly, but also the way teachers teach and the ways students learn.
With so many changes in the world of information technology, we all have a lot of work just to keep up, but no one more so than America’s schools. After all, the youth of today will be the workers, managers, and politicians of tomorrow, but the question remains: can we educate them appropriately in the technology of the future?
Did you know that most people will change careers ten to fourteen times during their lives? This is exactly why career coaching has become such a popular profession in the last decade or so. But many job seekers and career aspirants, especially older workers who have never heard of using a ‘coach’ shy away from the idea. However career coaches have actually become instrumental in terms of helping those who wish to make either horizontal or vertical moves in their careers, but more importantly they help those who wish to make their dreams come true in a more holistic way. They take into account all the client’s personal and professional aspirations, aptitudes, and lifestyle choices while considering career choices that may help to fulfill them all. Career coaches don’t teach their client’s to “settle.” They help them to design the ideal job, get the training required, and get happily and gainfully employed for the long term.
Evidence Based Management has proven itself one of the most innovative management styles in today’s constellation of management approaches. It reflects the wisdom of Lao Tsu and his belief that a good leader is not one who takes the helm and spearheads change, but who “leads from behind,” or respects the wisdom of the workers themselves.
If you feel like you are doing more and more and achieving less and less, you might want to become familiar with the 80/20 principle. It asserts that there is an imbalance between inputs and outputs, as well as causes and consequences, that results in a minimum of the inputs, or causes, causing most of the results. That is, 20% of your actions cause 80% of the desired results. In short, a few of the things you do are important, but most are not.
In Thick Face, Black Heart, Chu brings up a couple of interesting points about “winning.” She says “Winning is a Matter of How you Keep Score.” Of course, we all know this. I know some people who consider winning to be making a lot of money, others who consider it to have something to do with status, others who consider it to mean how much good you do for the earth and its inhabitants in your lifetime. There are others who think it has something to do with how clean your kitchen is, how brilliant your children are, or how many great books you have read in your lifetime. There are as many interpretations of success and winning as there are people on this earth.
IT workers are used to it: the techy offices are dominated by males. Women working in IT are a rare bird. Nothing new there. But why is that? In school tests, girls and boys have shown equivalent scores in math, science, and computing. Much techy work is online, and online jobs are very popular with women, especially mothers, who have historically enjoyed working from home. So why the paucity of female workers?
Outsourcing and offshoring have been the catch phrases of the recession. Preventing companies from utilizing untaxed, out-of-country workers (who receive pennies for each dollar an American worker would receive) has become a central issue in business and government news. Of course, every industry has a different take on the problem. Many feel they could not survive without going overseas for cheap labor, while many others feel that if you “can’t survive” by supporting the American economy, your business has now place in the economy in the first place. But where is the issue of “offpeopling” in all of these debates?
These days, you’d think it was a crime to ever be insecure. Every success guru and business advisor tells people to project a confident air through their clothing, their speech, their actions, their walk, everything. All of this teaches us to keep up the pretense. Don’t let anyone know when you are being human—being insecure, neurotic, paranoid, and all that. We all feel that way now and then, even the most successful, most typically self-confident among us. Says Chu, in Thick Face, Black Heart: “Only fools and saints are absolutely secure about themselves.” It’s what makes us people, not machines. But is there any way we can make neurosis and insecurity work to our advantage? Certainly, it’s been done throughout the ages.
In “Thick Face, Black Heart—the path to thriving, winning, and succeeding,” Chu talks about how you shouldn’t berate yourself for your negative features. Simply use them to create success for yourself. If you are greedy, go ahead and be greedy, but don’t let that greed stop at money. Let yourself be greedy for the best life for your family, for a better community, a better world. Let the greed be well-rounded and it will serve you well. Another thing we often berate ourselves for is procrastination.
If you are a negative thinker, don’t bother with success mantras and positive-thinking chants such as “every day in every way I’m getting better and better.” Just skip it. I’m serious. Another side of the coin of negative thinking is the fact that you have a full awareness of just what your flaws are. Now that you have that awareness, thank your lucky stars for it and try to turn those flaws into springboards.
