Librarianship. Education. Experimentation.
I’m sure some of you have seen this already, but I thought I’d share for those who haven’t. I’m a big Ken Robinson fan and what’s not to love about the RSA Animate series?
I particularly like how he distinguishes between divergent thinking and creativity (near the end of the video). I guess you can thank the education system for beating (or boring) the creativity out of you.
Throughout The Great Reset Richard Florida uses two past economic “resets” as instructive examples for our current economic situation. The First Reset was called the Long Depression (late 19th century) and the Second Reset was the Great Depression (1930s). In the final chapter of the book, he uses these resets to comment on the current state of education:
“The First Reset gave us the modern system of public schools and laid the foundations of the modern university and college education system, as well as modern engineering education. The Second Reset expanded higher education, among other things sparking the creation of the modern research-intensive university. Those giant strides forward are but small steps compared to the changes required today.” (p. 183)
Think about that for a second… if Florida is right, then we need to overhaul the entire educational system (or invent something new that can run alongside the existing system). It’s a scary thought, but perhaps those of us in higher education are living on borrowed time – it’s only a matter of time before students, employers, and maybe even governments decide that they’re not getting the right return on their investment in traditional higher education environments. Then what do we do?
I just finished reading Richard Florida’s latest book, The Great Reset, and, as usual, I’ve come away with some interesting food for thought. I know some people scoff at Richard Florida’s work and the whole notion of the Creative Class, but I tend to think he’s right on track. There is a shift afoot in our economy and it’s most certainly away from manufacturing jobs. Here’s a passage that I found particularly poignant about the future of the workforce given that I teach second year students:
“The old manufacturing economy honed physical skills such as lifting and manual dexterity. But two sets of skills matter more now: analytical skills, such as pattern recognition and problem solving, and social intelligence skills, such as the situational sensitivity and persuasiveness required for team building and mobilization.” (p. 118)
For me, Florida is hitting a nerve. Corporations, governments and other organizations are demanding flexible employees who have creative problem solving abilities and the desire to work with others to make something happen. The scary thing is that our modern system of education just may not be equipped to teach these skills.
In The Power of Positive Deviance the authors use the following Vietnamese proverb: “A thousand seeings aren’t worth one doing” (p. 46). In the book this proverb is used to describe the deeper social psychology behind internalizing knowledge, but I couldn’t help but apply it to my own position as an information literacy librarian.
What if we refused to do IL sessions that were only demonstrations (i.e. where the students only “see” the process) and only agreed to deliver interactive sessions (i.e. where the students actually “do” the process)? I can hear the objections already (classes are too big, time is too short, library resources are limited, etc.), but if most students don’t learn with even a thousand “seeings” maybe it’s time for a change.
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