The Bulgarian Mafia

I read in the paper the other day, that Bulgaria has suffered an epidemic of killings -- of mafia leaders. Suspicion has fallen on the government managed secret police, well known for their history of high profile assassinations. The story is that Bulgaria is trying to clean up its act as a precursor to joining the European Union. The mafia gives Bulgaria a bad name so the government is having mafia leaders killed. Sixty so far in the last few years. The problem is -- continues the report -- that this activity will discourage investment in Bulgaria... Investment by who? you may ask. (Or by whom? if you want to follow traditional rules of grammar.) My guess is, these killings will discourage investment by other mafia, from outside Bulgaria. The killings will discourage investment by other murderous, criminal thugs. After all, it's the mafia that is being targetted. Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

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Independent Thinking
Independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com

Honesty is the Best Policy (rofl)

A recent column in The West despaired of the falling level of truth and honesty in society. Why are we more prone to lying? the columnist asked. Is it the declining standards of honesty displayed by politicians? I don't believe that politicians are lying more. It's just that the lying is more visible... With more media coverage, more people have a chance to see the lying. And why should we be honest when those in power are as crooked as a dog's hind leg? When I was a low level employee, I was happy and content. I did my job, did it to the best of my ability, believed that everyone else was doing the same.

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Thinking Lateral
Need new thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com

After a series of gradual promotions I became a senior professional and a low level manager. As a professional, I did my best with my work and believed that others also did their best. As a manager, I was involved with other managers... and the more I saw, the more disillusioned I became. Working with other managers opened my eyes to a world of self-serving dishonesty... Sure, there were some very honest managers. There were also all shades of "less honest" managers -- right up to the ones who had already sold their own grandmothers to attain their current positions. Because that's what it's all about: doing whatever is necessary to win. (Though to be fair, most would sell someone else's grandmother before their own.) To succeed in business there are -- from what I saw -- several options:

• Outstanding ability. This would work best if tied in with...
• Willingness to agree with the boss. Disagreement is a "CLM", a career limiting move.
• Work hard, harder than the next person. As long as you are clearly seen to be working on what the boss wants.
• Tear down the opposition.
• Lie about your accomplishments.

What I saw was that dishonesty -- in its various forms -- was both the key to success -- and as common as muck. Why did I see this? I saw it because -- as a low level manager -- I mixed in with the other managers... I was there, so I saw what was happening. How does this relate to honesty (or dishonesty) in society? Politicians -- or their equivalents, the earlier, less "democratic" rulers -- were a mixture of good and bad. What did the average person know about this? Next to nothing -- politicians and the people moved in completely different circles, there was no overlap, no communication between the two groups. Now we have a different situation: the daily newspapers need to fill their pages, they are quite happy to discuss -- in excruciating detail -- the lies and corruption of politicians. For those who cannot read, TV and radio offer similar services. When political lies are thin on the ground -- there is always big business. With all this evidence of dishonesty, what is the average person to think? What are they to do? It's not a case of, Mum'd kill me if I lied about this, or, The boss'd sack me if I didn't do my best. Now it's, This politician and that business leader did worse, perhaps I can get ahead if I stretch the truth a bit... We have the influence of family and friends, to be good, be careful, be honest. Against that we have the obvious success stories -- the people who have gained power, influence and money... and are now very obviously corrupt. It must be true, we see it in the papers every day. It must be acceptable, TV bombards us with stories of "successful" people who act dishonestly. That is what is wrong with us, why ordinary people seem to be less honest than they were. It's because we are more able to see how our "leaders" act... we can see what it -- apparently -- takes to succeed. And if that's how "our leaders" get ahead -- why should we not do the same?

Can we change this?

Well, we could ask our politicians to be more honest. (Then they would not win party pre-selection, let alone elections. So they would tell us.) We could ask our business leaders to be more honest. (Then they would be sacked, or go bankrupt. (So they would tell us.) There is an easier solution: Ban TV news and stop teaching people to read. Without TV and without newspapers, ordinary people would not know about the corruption amongst their leaders. They would then -- knowing no better -- assume that honesty is, indeed, the best policy.

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Independent Thinking
Independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com

OBE: What do the *Students* want?

OBE -- objective based education -- is all the go in WA. Schools are being pushed into OBE, ready or not. It's a better basis for education. Better than what?

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Thinking Lateral
Need new thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com

Students study to pass exams. Passing an exam is an "objective" -- the objective is, to get 50% (or possibly better) in the exam. With continuous assessment the objective is, to get 50% or better by the time the last piece of assessment has been marked. What is new with OBE? Why is it better? Apparently we need objectives such as, Understands the deep societal significance of adding two numbers together. Whether or not you can actually add those numbers together is irrelevant -- as long as you understand the significance of the activity. How are these objectives measured? Well, the teachers can spend a lot of time discussing the task with each student, to see what is being understood... There may also be a little test, to test that minor, secondary objective of, Able to add two numbers and get an accurate result. How do we test that objective? We can ask the students to add up a whole lot of sets of two numbers then see how many they added correctly... Oh dear, a test. And with objective, measurable, comparable results, too! That can't be any good. The first objective is wishy wasy, the teacher can phrase the result in any fashion -- in particular, the results will be subjective and with no fear of failure. After all, it's far better to have a society full of ignorant, uneducated fools than to have any students feeling that they are less able than others...

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Here's a largely irrelevant anecdote: I was a university lecturer, at a university where attracting fee-paying students was more important than education. I was a lecturer for seven semesters, presenting one particular unit for nearly all of those semesters. This gave me the opportunity to test all sorts of ideas to keep the students interested... Each semester, students evaluated the lecturers. It was generally accepted that evaluations were influenced by assessment: if a lecturer failed a student, the student failed the lecturer. Lecturers then had to explain to the head of school, why students did not like the lecturer. My own students consistently gave me poor evaluations. I tried lecturing with a lot of interaction, explanations, questions and answers. I tried setting tasks, so that students found out the answers for themselves. I tried just standing up and telling the students the facts that they needed to know. Guess what? In the semester when I simply stood up and talked -- the students loved it! My student evaluations were so good that the head of school mentioned me at a staff meeting as a good example! What had I done right? The way I see it, I presented what the students wanted to hear: information that was relevant to what they had to learn. Students wanted to pass the unit. To do this they needed to learn a bare minimum of facts, ideas and understanding. I stood in front of them and provided exactly those facts and ideas, with perhaps some understanding. They could read the text, they could listen to me, the information was the same. I was providing a very clear, very straightforward explanation of what they needed to know. I provided simple information, students appreciated that. They knew why they were listening to me. No confusion about learning to learn, no deeper significance, just an obvious link between my lectures and the requirements of the unit. Did they learn anything worthwhile? Of course they did! They learnt the material relevant to my unit. At the end of my unit they were all better ablt to do what I was trying to teach. My objectives were simple: students should learn my unit material. I presented lectures to support that objective. It was all very simple, measurable an even com[parable amongst the students: learn more and your mark will be higher. Did the students appreciate the direct, no-nonsense, "just learn this" approach? Apparently they did. Not only did the students appreciate it... I found it a lot easier to prepare lectures. And the head of school appreciated the improved results of my student evaluations... Satisfaction all round -- through a very simple, traditional approach to teaching and learning.

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Independent Thinking
Independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com