In the first slideshow one of the slides says that caterpillars are a "yellow, gooey, sticky mess" before they become butterflies. This can certainly be applied to change, whether it be personal or institutional. Change often involves discomfort and some degree of uncertainty. It can be very difficult to change, especially when it involves trying to change habits or procedures that have been in place for a long time. The current health care debate among national leaders is an example of a possible drastic change and I am not endorsing or criticizing any of the schools of thought by mentioning it.
In the cheese slide one of the characters states that "fear that you let build up is worse than the situation that actually exists." I think this is true. Is it possible that our primeval fear instincts sometimes create situations in our minds that are not reflective of reality? I believe so. Or maybe it is not so much our fear but our mind's ability to imagine that can sometimes terrify us.
Another of the cheese slides says that we need to anticipate and monitor change. This is much easier said than done, since change is constant and sometimes difficult to predict. It seems to me that the organizations that best anticipate and deal with change are often the most successful. Examples of successful corporations are Intel, Microsoft, Honda and Google. An example of an organization that has not anticipated nor monitored change well is General Motors.
In one of the systems videos the narrator says "something that an organization does in one era to be wildly successful may be necessary to just get by in another era." I certainly think this can be related to educators, as we have much more "on our plate" than teachers from bygone eras did. Teachers today have more curricular, pedagogical and managerial issues to deal with than ever before. There is no doubt that in order to do my job as a library media specialist much, much more is expected of me than even the people (there used to be three people doing my job) who were here a year before I was hired.
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3 comments:
Dan,
I really like how you talked about change in the schools as well as the "real world". It always amazes me how change can cause such stress. I think that teachers can either be very good at dealing with change or very bad. Very insightful blog. Thanks for making me think.
Lisa
Dan,
I agree with both you and Lisa. Change is good, but in the wrong hands, bad. But at times, it is definitely necessary in order to keep a good school district moving forward. I think that so many of us in this masters class is a good thing, and we can finally bring this district up to speed technologically if we continue to move forward with change and work together.
Meg
Dan, this was an excellent thoughtful post. I too like how you related change in education and the competitive market place.
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