College: more than vocational school?

From an editorial is this week's Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Education includes knowledge, certainly, and knowledge is in fairly short supply these days to be sure. But education includes so much more.

When it is time to "send" our 18-year-olds to college, they ought to go off, preferably some distance, and live in a dorm -- to their and their parents' great relief. It is time to signal the arrival of adulthood in a dramatic way. Dropping new students at the dorm is a sacrosanct rite of passage.

They need to do theater, music, debate, and intramural sports. They need to be a part of the late-night bull sessions over pizza and proscribed beer in the hallway.

They need to spoon the green beans to impatient students in the college commons and learn to argue effectively with the registrar.

They'll learn as much from each other as they do from their professors because they will spend more time with their peers and -- with some luck -- form a valuable network that will last a lifetime. In a word, education is a rich package that should involve the entire person. Larry J. Crockett "Online education doesn't measure up"

The "value" of a college education has recently become a hotly debated topic. Respected thinkers such as Will Richard are openly asking whether they will encourage their own children to attend college. Given the cost of higher ed and uncertainty of job acquisition, one should be doing a cost/benefit analysis, I suppose. Can the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in college costs/loans ever be recouped through the possibly higher wages of a professional career? Is higher education a good "investment?"

I've been giving this a lot of thought because my own son has had some higher ed decisions to make. After cramming a two year AA degree in film production into just four short years and taking a couple years to get a cultural experience living in Wellington, NZ, Brady is now back at a state university working on a BA in graphic design. The betting pool is not for when he will finish, but who among those betting will still be alive to collect.

Yet, I am very, very happy he is going and not because I think he will necessarily be more employable or make more money or attain a "professional" status. College is - or should be - more than an expensive vocational school. In most of the discussions I hear, people seem to have forgotten this.

As Mr. Crockett opines above, college should be a whole-person experience. Learning should be as much about stretching one's mind as focusing on a discipline. It should be about taking intellectual risks, arguing for argument's sake, learning the pleasures of subversion, and doing a wild thing now and then. As Sydney Harris once wrote, "The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure." It seems that in our nervousness about unemployment, loss of world economic status, and holy pursuit of amassing piles o' money, we hear little about education's role in making people more interesting, more engaged, and more human.

After just a week or two into his freshman year, Brady came home tossing around terms like "violating the fourth wall" of theater. I was tickled. I doubt this understanding will ever contribute to his paycheck's size, but it willl give him an interesting way to analyze a production for the rest of his life.

Maybe I am just tired this warm Friday evening, but when did our culture start finding value in only those things that have monetary value? Are the joys of leisure, the pleasures of travel, or the satisfaction of a good conversation with old friends over a cheap glass of wine just lost in the hubbub of stock market values, housing bubbles and tax fairness that blares constantly in the media?

Send your kids to college. Please. But do it for the right reason.

80% of success

80% of success is showing up. - Woody Allen

According to the association principle. if we surround ourselves with success that we are connected with in even a superficial way ... , our public prestige will rise. - Robert B. Cialdini Influence*

Image source

I attended a meeting earlier this week of local legislators, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, and some state education bigwigs. Other than a few pleasantries exchanged with the community members I knew, I didn't say a damn thing. It may have been a first for me. But it's a good thing I went anyway and this is why...

In the best of all possible worlds, people are judged solely on the competence they show in their work. Does the work get finished? Is it of high quality? Is work done in a timely manner? Is all work done reliably? Are creative insights and processes used when appropriate? Is one's work accomplished in such a way that a productive work environment is maintained? 

While such a track record certainly helps create job security (and for some it may be enough), those of us who screw up on a regular basis, who may want to change the status quo, and who often need to make decisions that are not universally popular (librarians and technology people?) need a do a little more.

Following Cialdini and Hartzell's good advice, consider ways to "associate yourself with success" or at least get to be known outside the library or tech office. Some ways to do this:

• Attend any special functions - award ceremonies, openings, open houses, special events.
• Go to athletic events, plays, science fairs, and other public extra-curricular happenings.
• Participate in your PTO/PTA even at meetings where you are not asking for something.
• Volunteer to serve on building and district committees - staff development, legislative, building leadership, curriculum planning, technology, whatever.
• Take your turn at bus duty, hall duty, ticket taking, cake serving, lounge clean up, etc.

I am not sure if this works in big cities, but those of us who live is smaller communities (Mankato has about 50,000 souls in the "metro region") can use our community presence to build influence and possibly job security as well. 

• Take an active role in your church, synagogue, mosque or coven if you attend.
• Take an active role in civic groups such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, etc.
• Be a member of the YMCA and United Way and volunteer for helping with fund raisers, etc.
• Be an active member of a local political party organization. 
• Join and participate in community clubs of bicyclists, hikers, gardeners, car collectors, etc.

It is more difficult to fire a person who is viewed not just as employee, but as a community member. Our physcial, local networks, not just our virtual ones, cand and do support us.

Oh, and doing some of the things listed above, you are actually doing good in the world as well as building a presence. It's a two-fer.

Be seen, be associated with good things, be valued.

*Probably the most important book for any librarian, technology director or other school change agent to read. Thanks to Gary Hartzell whose book Building Influence for the School Librarian brought this book to my attention. His book is a must read for all librarians.

And ISTE wants to increase its membership?

ISTE could have found a much better looking poster child. 

I hope the organization survives this lapse of good editorial judgement.