Notes from the corporate sausage factory: Or how I learned to love the system and stop worrying
rants, the heart, thinking Add comments
A while ago I was set a task. To drive to the Gold Coast every Thursday and try my hand at teaching a subject about information. Hey why not? The Gold Coast is an interesting place and the people there are quite nice. The interesting thing is that in five years of teaching this subject elsewhere I have found that people really don’t like it. We have tried everything from standing on our head to juggling in class. Many years ago a friend of mine even dressed up like a witch and handed out minties to increase student engagement. Alas, it didn’t work.
It’s easy to teach something people love… try teaching something people hate
I remember five years ago turning up to a class and introducing the major assessment to the class. After one hour of reading on a big screen a student came up to me and asked… what was that about? No, I am not joking. I am being serious. I asked her what she meant and she told me she wasn’t watching for the past hour and wanted me to explain what I had just said… again. During my time this experience stands out but is far too common in my courses.
People hate this course. It’s about ‘information’, informatics, information systems and so on. Boring? Students in the class range from my friend above, to mavens, critics, trouble makers and the occasional paradigm shifter. Overall this has been however, a part of my life that has brought me a lot of growth but a quadruple measure of frustration as well.
How do you hold your head up when the majority of students don’t want to learn… they just want to earn
95% of the people I have taught in any of my courses almost always don’t give a crap about what I have to say. Now, if you are reading this and you were in my course you may be in the 5%. If that’s you then God bless you. If you are reading this and remember me you may have liked me or the course but can’t remember what I said. That’s probably my fault. But what can you do when you are stuck with subjects like knowledge management? For goodness sake, I don’t even know what that is.
Most of the people I meet are on the their way to the sausage factory. By that, I am of course referring to the giant machine that sucks the living creative spirit out from us and makes hamburger patties with it. That machine. The evil corporate beast that brings you the lottery, things like ‘the systems development life cycle’ and so on. Why am I harping on about this? Well … why not?
So how do you cope with students who just want a ‘pass’. Granted I believe a lot of the time in what I teach that it’s A). useful and B) helpful. But I am stuck with this bullcrap idealist mentality I inherited from someone. Can I tell you that most people don’t want to learn about information… even though I want them to? Why should I bother?
When I started teaching I had a concept of what I thought teaching would be like. Sharing ideas, collaboration you know the sort of thing you see on those Lotus advertisements. But who the hell am I kidding? How do you hold your head up? You either forget about being a teacher or you push hard, make them hate you and move on. Neither option is good… there is probably a third when my head pulls itself out of this daze I will remember it.
Amongst the gloom: there have been shining lights?
Of course. I am by nature an optimist. So there have been many people who I helped who were incredibly nice. Overall my assessment is however, that most of time you are simply repeating information for those who ‘want to get through’. Through to what? Through to corporate sausage maker.
A friend of mine put it this way: we are feeding meat to the corporate sausage factory. I think he is right. I have no power to change the way society chooses to run it’s business. You don’t have to run business that way. Read Maverick (Ricardo Semler) if you don’t believe me. Things can be different. Yet, we stick to the Fordian principles of ’scientific’ management which insist we develop ‘plans’ whilst never questioning the underlying motives of our ’superiors’.
The system is not good for people who care
If you are like me and you have a heart you simply can’t switch off when it comes to these things. I have heard it said that you the author is separate to the page. I am sorry but that simply is a load of rubbish. You can be diced up into little bits and fed into the sausage grinder unless you want to be. If you care about your teaching and want to help people learn … it will cost you. There’s a price you must pay if ‘learning’ is the aim of any course. No matter if it’s basket weaving at your local school or quantum mechanics… you will have to pay the price. If you put effort or time or energy into what you do then be prepared for the sausage people. They are part of life.
An optimistic view
I am the kind of academic who believes in knowledge but I don’t REALLY think the endless streams of meta-information we call ‘journals’ are really going to improve society. After realising during my PhD that most knowledge streams never interact I have become more than a little concerned about problems and society. For example when I was reviewing the problem solving research literature I went to all kinds of disciplines. Education, humanities, science, information systems, information technology and social science to name just a few. Do you know what I found? I found the same argument mentioned at least 30 times. Exactly what was that argument?
We need to find better ways to fix messy problems
They all said the same thing but in different contexts. Yet none of them spoke in the same voice. It’s like being in a room with 30 people from different nationalities while they all speak the same sentence in their own language. How can so many different people have the same conversation with themselves? And anyway could you please tell me how any of that is improving society? People can’t because overall it’s about promotions, journal rankings and impact factors. Is that really improving society? Well you might say, ‘I got into Academy of Management Review but if it isn’t working or improving things who actually cares?
I am not saying that I don’t care. That’s precisely the problem I do care. But why? A theory is only as good as it’s validity or usefulness. But I digress.
I would like to end my rant here on a positive note. I have had many wonderful students. Too many to name actually. These people have enlightened my life with their brilliance, challenges and wit. I have met great teachers, fellow thinkers and carers on the path of knowledge who made my life wonderful… for a while. Most of them wind up in trouble with the sausage machine, sacked or moving on. How sad.
So what’s the positive point? There are people who want to learn and grow. These ones are rare but make the journey worthwhile. Yes, it makes up for all the stupid university politics (hat tip to Peter Checkland), the disciplinary meetings and the endless reams of ‘research’. Why because somebody cares and was bothered enough to look beyond the surface level. These people teach me that sausage maker can’t get to everyone, oh no there are some who for the sake of learning have shunned it’s shiny metal surface. So for these I say it’s all worth it!
Powered by MightyAdsense
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hey Luke,
Did not know that you had one of these pages set up mate. Anyway, to the point I haven’t had a chance to read the full article that you have written above but, in essence it seems to coincide with the many conversations that we had about the “university grinding machina”.
My view, in the beginning of my university career was that of excitement. I was there, I was ready to learn and WILLING!!!
God, it excites me reading new stuff, learning about x n y and having a great lecturer like yourself with whom I am able to converse on higher matters than the arbitrary X+Y=Z without the Why’s.
I think, that is what is missing in university institutions these days. The Why’s. There are none left anymore. We are taught how to disseminate information, what information is, and how to store it. EVEN HOW TO LEARN! Yes, we have workshops nowadays for everything. Even a simple thing as how to learn.
But, no one really knows what learning is. Ask the average student and youll get a blank look. And as for the why?’s
Well… when was the last student that asked why? Why is that so, why do x + y = z? I dunno. It seems that university has forgotten one thing. That learning…
In essence is curiosity. And currently, that fundamental aspect of all learning is being repressed by our learning institutions where professors are only concerned about writing their next paper, or just getting that pay check. In end we only breed a generation of people who are, despite their achievements and their degrees, still uneducated.
Anyway, enough of that rant mate.
Work calls and my breaks pretty much over. Lets catch up sometime.
- Azur
ps: I think i was in the 95% :P.