Bror's Blog

Video of high school graduation talk - less than 20 minutes

Welcome to the modern era, when cell phones and other digital devices are at every hand, recording almost everything that is going on! 

Herewith is the graduation talk I gave at my daughter's graduation, referred to in this earlier blog. Amazing what a few hand-held cams, a Mac, and a copy of iMovie can do in the hands of one's family. . .

Do check out the intro by Siri and her friend.  I think we should bring in that tradition of formal introducers used in other cultures - I could use them everywhere. . .

Enjoy!

Second chances

Richard Gonzales just did a piece  on NPR's Morning Edition describing a prison that is finding success with a post-secondary education program. Perhaps an "extreme sports" example of why access to quality, career-changing education is key at all ages.

San Quentin is famous for its prison, not usually in a positive way.  Yet the volunteer-run post-secondary institution within seems to be making a difference to the inmates, and to the prison. 

According to the story, it's run by "some 3,000  community volunteers who conduct about 70 inmate programs" on a wide array of topics, including going to college through the Prison University Project. The university program itself relies on 100 teachers from nearby schools, including Berkeley, Stanford, and others. Other prisoners are even seeking to transfer into San Quentin because of the university program - looking for a chance to "change their minds" while on the inside.

Lots of potentially divisive issues to wrestle with, of course: What about all those folks outside prison walls who don't have volunteer-run access to university courses taught by Stanford or Berkeley faculty?  How do we reconcile education with punishment - a very old debate - are prisons for punishing, or rehabilitating, or some mix of both?

University classroom problems are not generically "online" - instead, online may help!

William Tierney has written a recent editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education ("Creating a Meaningful College Experience in an Era of Streamlining," June 12, 2011) lamenting some of the changes in traditional undergraduate learning experiences. Many of his points are good ones, but he suggests that the ineffective practices are making classrooms feel more "online," as if online is synonymous with disengaging and ineffective.  While poor design of instruction can occur both in-class and online, I would argue that online and technology-enhanced techniques for learning can be a source of solutions for better learning in-class, not a metaphor for problems. 

Professor Tierney writes about the distressing state of many undergraduates' experiences: 

• Large class sizes (200+)
• Faculty and teaching assistants unable and unwilling to assist with individual issues
• Little formative feedback from work to build new learning on
• Insufficient practice work assigned because of the ensuing grading workload
• Little opportunity for rich engagement between faculty and students
• Additional distractions from students' need to earn money to cover bills

Graduation day part 2: Myths and reality of the after-life

David Brooks wrote a recent editorial lamenting how colleges are preparing students for the modern world. (It's Not About You, New York Times, May 30, 2011) He makes interesting points about what he views as myths about post-graduate life that tie to what's known about learning.

For example, he laments the fact that graduates are often “told to pursue happiness and joy.” As he writes:

“But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it's rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration.”

What learning science shows (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, or Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated) is that achieving mastery involves thousands of hours of “deliberate practice.” Artistic directors and coaches already know that deliberate, coached, repetition of many skills provides the foundation for ultimate creative expression we value in experts. Almost no great expert feels “happiness and joy” around the relentless practice they've done, and often keep doing, to stay at the edge, but that is the price they pay (and anyone must pay) to be, and stay, an expert.

The real deal: in most things in life, you won't succeed by only pursuing what is“happiness and joy.” The road to achieving those from your skills is paved with hard work, sometimes pain.

Graduation day: Incompetence will be the new competence!

This weekend I was lucky enough to be asked by my daughter's high school graduation class to be their keynote speaker.  (I gather Lady Gaga was otherwise engaged. . .)

Thinking about what to do at this august event (I don't even lip synch, much less sing), I realized my very sense of not being competent to the task might be "the point:"  Incompetence, after all, is becoming the new competence.

The Boston Consulting Group tracks "megatrends," large, multi-decade changes in technology, societies, demographics, and more, looking for key issues that their client base needs to watch out for.  One of the trends they're noticing is how rapidly careers are changing:  in my parents' generation, workers would expect a job or two to make up a career.  In my generation, we expect 5-6 jobs, sometimes more, to make up a career.

However, in the lives of high school graduates today, there's a good chance they'll need 2, 3, perhaps even 4 complete careers.  With skills becoming globally mobile, chances are that many careers that start in one country will move to another; with technology advancing rapidly, increasing numbers of careers will get shut down while others start up.