Russell Ackoff has long been one of my favourite management thinkers, so when I saw his name attached to a paper on ChangeThis, “Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track” I instantly downloaded it. I wasn’t disappointed. The analysis he and coauthor, Daniel Greenberg, provide is filled with insights and wisdom. Here is its opening:
“Education should be a lifelong enterprise, a process enhanced by an environment that supports to the greatest extent possible the attempt of people to “find themselves” throughout their lives.
For too long, we have educated people for a world that no longer exists, extinguishing their creativity and instilling values antithetical to those of a free, 21st century democracy. The principal objective of education as currently provided is to ensure the maintenance and preservation of the status quo—to produce members of society who will not want to challenge any fundamental aspects of the way things are. Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching, there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. Being taught is, to a very large extent, boring and much of its content is seen as irrelevant. It is the teacher, not the student, who learns most in a traditional classroom.”
Go to the Changethis site and download it here. After you have read it go back and e-mail copies to your friends. Let’s see if we can drive this one to the top of the ChangeThis’s lists of the most popular.